DOUBLE SHEET. 


NUMBER XVI. 



FT 

MEADE 

PZ 3 
. G66 
Ab2 

Copy 1 





WILSON & COMPANY. PUBLISHERS. 

ABE ONE GO, 
THE MONEY-LENDER. 
By Mrs. Gore. 

FIRST AMERICAN EDITION. 


CHAPTER I. 

"Antonio and old Shylock, both stand forth .” — Shake spear. 

During the uproar of excitement, rejoicing, prodigality of pleasure, 
splendor, riot and intemperance, which attended the ratification of 
peace, after the downfall of Napoleon, there appeared in London a 
mysterious personage who soon distinguished himself and became 
very eminent among that numerous and respectable class of capital- 
ists who ad <rertise “money to be advanced to noblemen or gen- 
tlemen on THE MOST favorable terms.” This person was in a 
short time singularly familiar to the young spendthrifts of the uni. 
versities and the Guards, and his advertisements directed the reader 
to a certain A. CL, to whom reference was to be made by letter, ad- 
dressed to the Ilungerford Coffee-house. There was a tone of respec- 
tability in the phrasing of these manifestoes. They had the airof pro 
©ceding from some gentlemen with a large floating capital, and no 
great faith in government securities, anxious to obtain good interest 
anda safe investment for his money, —perhaps for the "benefit of a 
deserving wife and numerous family. People reduced for the first time 
to the sdiame of borrowing, said to themselves, <c A. 0. is mv man !” 
There was fir less humiliation in addressing a letter to the Hunger, 
ford Coffee-house, than in being seen entering the^ door of notorious 
mcney.brokers in Cork street or Pall Mall. 

Bat it ivas observed that no man after a similar application, was 
ever known to refer his friend to the same source of relief. No one 
talked about A. O., — no one admitted that he had any cognizance of 
this mysterous personage. Or if, in an orgie of thoughtless boys 
about to repair to the gambling table, or Confessing the ill luck of the 
previous night and its results, some novice suggested the well adver- 
tised name of A. O., every one present appeared anxious to change 
Inc conversation. Each had instantly some pet. usurer to recommend. 
Still, not a soul was positively heard- "to say, “ Beware of A. O. !” A 
cnarm seemed attached to the name, so averse were even the most 
liardened thirsters after the pocket's blood to pronounce those dire- 
ful initials. However prompt to revile the originators of all other ad- 


NEW-YQRK, JANUARY 10, 1843. 


vertisements of a similar description, as legitimate descendants of 
Barabbas, no one whispered a syllable against A. O. Discriminat- 
ing persons may, perhaps, infer from this, that most of these cau- 
tious friends were in his power ! 

At a dinner at the Guard’s Club in S(. James’s street, early in the 
autumn of 1822, it was observed that, discussion having arisen con- 
cerning recent losses at play, at Graham’s renowned Temple of 
Chance, where, at that moment, fortunes were winning and losing 
with fearful rapidity, the countenance of a young officer, who had 
hitherto listened to such allusion with perfect unconcern, became 
singularly agitated. It was noticed with the more surprise, because 
Basil Annesicy never entered the doors of Graham's, and bore no re- 
lationship to any one of the parties whose affairs were thus freely 
canvassed. , 

“ Four thousand on Thursday night, and three thousand last 
week observed Colonel Loftus, “ Poor Sir Grinsel ! I’m afraid 
’tis all up with him ! He told me himself he had raised twelve thous- 
and ia3t month ; and that be had not a resource left, — mortgaged to 
the last guinea, — every stick on his Irish estates gone ! —Poor Sir 
Grinsel ^ 

“ He has latterly had recourse to A. O.,” added Captain Blencowe, 
in a grave under tone ; “ so one can understand the sort of straits 
to which he must be reduced.*' 

“ A. O. ? — Why surely that is the person to whom my uncle, the 
Duke of Rochester, is said to owe thirty thousand pounds?” — c'ied a 
youngster who had lately joined, and was fond of citing his “ uncle 
the duke,” (a weakness of course hoaxed out of him before he had 
been six months in the regiment ) 

“ Ay. and out of whose clutches half the fellows you meet every 
day in St. James’s street would be right glad to extricate themselves,” 
retorted Captain Blencowe. “ A. O. is the last resource of ruined 
men — the executioner who gives the coup de grace.'* 

“ What the deuce do you mean by the coup de grace ?” — demand- 
ed the lad so proud of being nephew to a duke. 

“ The coup de g^ace, is the stroke given to a vicUm on the wheel, 
to put him out of his pain,” replied a grey matter-of fact old colonel, 
who officiated as dry-nurse to the subalterns. 

“ I meant that A. 0. was the blackguard who aims thS first blow 
at ruined men ; the sort of fellow to fling a stone at a drowning dog, 
scarcely able to keep his head above water.” 

“ It was he, I fancy, who arrested Eggerston,” observed Colonel 
Loftus. 

“ And it w r as a writ obtained by A. O. that drove Frederick Lum- 
ley to Brussels,” rejoined Captain Blencowe. i( A man must inrhort 
have exhausted all other resources, to have recourse to him. How- 
ever, it must be added that he is unfailing at a pinch. The brute is 
always flush of cash ; and, if one choose to rush into the jaws of a 
shark with one’s eyesopen/one is more to blame than the creature that 
follows it3 instincts by closing them upon one. I once borrowed 



BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA. — ABEDNEGO. 


^aoncj of A. O. I had tried every other quarter. — A minor with only 
personal security to offer, the case seemed hopeless. However, the 
cormorant was tempted by thirty percent., and the attestation of my 
honest countenance and promissory note ; and to my dying day, 
never shall I forget the joy with which I found myself redeemed from 
the thraldom of the debt, within the year, by the generosity of an old 
aunt, who wa3 good enough to die for the purpose. 0 

“ Within a year, what had you to fear from him ?” 

44 Nothing to fear , — much to endure ! I had made the interest of 
that accursed five hundred pounds, payable monthly, out of the allow- 
ance which my skin-flint of a Scotch guardian doled out to me in the 
same manner. Every third of the month was I visited by a hateful 
night-mare, in the shape of A. O. — I think I see the door of my room 
opening to admit him ! — ” 

44 But why not makejt payable at your banker’s or agent’s ?” 

|C 4i He conditioned that it should be paid from hand to hand. I sus- 
pect he chose to have an eye upon the morals and health of his debtor ; 
for one day, when he made his appearance as usual, and the effects 
of a gin-punch party at Limmer’s the previous night, were only too 
visible in my face, I remember his fixing his keen eyes into me, like 
the talons of a bird of pray, and inquiring the nature of the disorder 
that made me so ghastly just as a ghoul might be supposed to in- 
vestigate the state of the corpse upon which it was about to make its 
loathsome repast.” 

44 Fine him, — fine him ! — Upon my soul, Blencowe, you are too 
bad 1” — cried several voices. 

44 You positively make me sick, with your ghoul and your A. O. !” 
added the Duke of Rochester’s nephew. 

44 He did me /” retorted the captain earnestly ; 44 the very recollec- 
tion sickens me now. — Loftus ! the claret, — something too much of 
this!” — and the wine was passed round, and the table soon resumed 
its tone of wonted hilarity. 

AH this time, Basil Annesley had been peeling his walnuts as as- 
siduously as though they were destined for some fair neighbor at a 
dinner party, instead of for his listless self. In point of fact, he 
knew not that he had so much as a walnut on his plate. Through- 
out the discussion, he had been all ear ; and chose an occupation en- 
abling him to listen with his face depressed, so as to conceal his deep 
interest in the matter. 

But the very means he took to disguise his emotion, caused it to 
be noticed. — Basil Annesley was one of those open-spirited fellows, 
who confront the observation of society, with an ever frank and fear- 
less countenance ; and to find his forehead, usually held so high, 
thus pertinaciously incumbent, and his voice usually so free in dis- 
cussion, thus perseveringly silent, excited surmises in the mind of 
Loftus. who s sat opposite to him, as well as in the grey-headed colonel. 

44 What is the meaning of all this ? Has poor Annesley been play- 
ing ?” was the secret conjecture of both. 41 Another victim to ecarte 
or hazard ! — Another victim for the remorseless claws of A. O !” 

Yet Annesley had never been noticed to enter a gambling house. — 
The play of fashionable London was not then concentrated into so 
decided a focus, as it has since become. But in a community 
so small as that to which Basil was attached, a man addicted to 
any grosser vice, is soon convicted ; and he had hitherto passed for 
a lady’s man, — an Almacks’ pet, — rather than for a fellow likely to 
be carried away by the dissipations of roue life. 

It was only a year, since Basil Annesley had joined the Guards. 
On quitting Harrow, he had completed his education at a foreign 
university ; and soon afterwards, as the son of the late Sir Bernard 
Annesley, one of the bravest victims of the Peninsular war, had ob- 
tained a commission from the generous patronage of the Royal Com- 
mander-in-chief. Of the state of his fortunes, little was authentically 
known. From the period of the General’s death, his mother had 
resided in retirement. 

Situated within a mile of the New Forest, the ancient mansion 
inhabited by the widow of Sir Bernard Annesley resembled rather a 
moated farm-house than the cottages of gentility to which widows of 
moderate means are apt to retire to meet the exigencies of a small 
establishment. Concealed within the intricacies of a wooded coun, 
try, attainable only by a detestable cross road or rather cross-lane cut- 
ting across the Forest from Ljmdhurst, Barlingbam Grange, or as it 
was abbreviated by the cottagers in the neighborhood, the Grange, 
was cut off from all communication with the active world ; and Lady 
Annesley was so cold in her deportment, and so wedded to the soli- 
tude in which she had resolutely ensconced herself, that, but for the 
affectionate fervor of Basil’s nature, itmust have appeared a penance 
to him rather than a schoolboy’s holiday, to journey twice a year 
from Harrow into Hampshire, and return thither for a couple of 
months, between the period of his quitting Heidelberg, and entering 
the army. 

Accustomed, however, to ascribe the melancholy reserve <sf his 
surviving parent to affliction for the loss of his father, Basil respected 
her austere melancholy ; and though in his boyhood there had been 
moments when, weary of flinging stones into the old moat to startle 
the dab-chicka from the reeds, and of contemplating the dilapidated 
pointed gables of the old brick mansion, he had almost wished he 
might not again set eyes on Barlingham, — he never returned thithe , 


to be folded with momentary warmth to the heart of his grave 
mother, arid submit anew to the cross-questioning of her venerable maid 
Dorcas, and the maundering of the old gardner, the only male domes- 
tic of that primitive establishment, without feeling that, after all, home 
was home, — a mother, a mother ; although the former exhibited the 
uttermost stagnation of earthly dulness, and the latter a reserve ac- 
cording better with th« measured affections of more distant relationship. 

But Lady Annesley was no longer young. Though still exhibiting 
traces of beauty of the highest order, she had long passed her fiftieth 
year ; and those eager demonstrations of maternal affections, which 
burst from the hearts of younger mothers, were not to bo expected of 
a widowed matron, in whom a life of utter solitude confirmed the 
tendencies which had led to its adoption. Nor was Basil an only child. 
She -had a daughter, twelve years older than himself; a daughter 
who, having married young and settled in the North, was now the 
mother of a numerous family of her own ; and as, from the period of 
her marriage Lady Annesley and Mrs. Vernon had never been known to 
meet, it might be inferred that the maternal sensibilities of Sir Ber- 
nard’s widow were of no very vivid nature. She had evidently never 
recovered the shock of his untimely death. 

Still, in spite of appearances, Basil thought otherwise. Undemon- 
strative as she was, there were moments when he had detected his 
mother’s eyes suffused with tears when fixed, as if furtively, upon his 
face. On one occasion, when she had taken leave of him with her 
usual serenity on his departure for Harrow, having been compelled to 
return a quarter of an hour afterwards in search of a letter addressed 
to Dr. Butler which he had left behind, he found her, on re-entering 
her cheerless sitting room, with her face buried in the cushions of her 
sofa, sobbing as if her heart would break. Yet when aware of his 
presence, as if irritated that he should have been a witness of her. 
grief, she only chided his carlessness, and did not renew her parting 
caress. 

He could scarcely remember his sister. She had been brought up 
by her father’s family. Basil was only seven years old at the period 
of her marriage ; and whenever, in earlier life, he expressed to his 
mother a wish to see Helena again, Lady Annesley replied, that they 
were not likely to meet, Mr. Vernon being an odd man ; an equivo- 
cal phrase, implying little or much, according to the acceptation of 
the hearer. Basil had taken it for granted that his brother-in-law 
was a brute, who, on account of his sister’s want of fortune, tyranniz- 
ed over her, and kept her apart from her family. But as Mrs. Vernon, 
during their two or three interviews, had not deigned to bestow on 
him a single sisterly caress, he felt little indignation in her behalf ; 
and had in fact almost ceased to recall to mind the existence of this 
estranged relative. 

44 It is really disgraceful that Helena should exhibit such unuatual 
indifference !” he once observed to his mother. 44 The result of bring- 
ing up a child under another’s roof ! Barlingham was never her 
home, and she has forgotten that it is that of her mother and brother.” 

A hectic flush tingled Lady Annesley’s pale cheek at the observa- 
tion, and Basil instantly repented his words : for he had now begun 
to surmise that the strict seclusion in which they lived, and the adop- 
tion of his eldest sister by his uncle, and a common origin — in the 
straitened means of his mother. It was strange indeed, that Admiral 
Annesley should not have selected, as the object of his favor, the son 
rather than the daughter of his deceased brother. But this might be 
easily accounted for. At the period of Sir Bernard’s death, Basil was 
of an age to require the affectionate services of a mother ; while 
Helena was nearly sixteen, her education completed. Moreover he 
flattered himself that Lady Annesley’s partiality for her boy was not 
without its influence in the selection. 

A portion of Basil’s uncertainties concerning his mother, however, 
were now at an end. During his sojourn at Heidelberg, his own 
developed intelligence enabled him to detect, even in her grave and 
earnest letters, a tone of strong maternal affection, subdued as if 
by an effort of resolution ; and on meeting her again, upon his re- 
turn from Germany, his strengthened character and greater self- 
possession, gave him courage to indulge in such demonstrations of 
grateful fibal tenderness as served in some measure to thaw the icy 
self-restraint of the widow. If she had not treated him more fondly 
during the two months he had spent at Barlingham, she had treated 
him more openly. She had avowed to him that she was not on 
friendly terms with his father’s family, — not even on friendly terms 
with her daughter, — 

44 It matters not with whom the fault,” said she, in answer to Ba- 
sil’s eager interrogatories. 44 Suffice it that the Annesley family in- 
clude the son so dear to me in their displeasure against myself, and 
are consequently little likely to make overtures of kindness towards 
you. Oblige me, therefore, dearest Basil, by abstaining from all 
further reference to the subject.” 

On another point, she ha*d been equally candid. She informed him 
that she was poor, — very poor ; that her income of eight hundred a- 
year, derived m a great measure from her pension as the widow of a 
general officer, would only enable her to make him an allowance of 
three ; that the little she could lay aside, was forming a fund for his 
future promotion ; and that necessity, as well as choice, had in- 
duced her to make a hermitage of her retreat. 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA. — ABEDNEGO. 




Ci All my desire, all my ambition, dearest Basil/’ said she, “is your 
advancement in life. My fate has been a sad one. I wa3 wedded 
against my inclination. Your father’s family caballed against me 
while he lived, and cast me off at hi3 death ; yet circumstances for- 
bade me to refuse their offer to adopting Helen, for whom, indeed, — 
but no matter ! My happiness has been you , Basil ; my consola- 

tion in you. For you have I lived ; for you I hope, and am happy. — 
Deficient as you may have sometimes fancied me in tenderness, so 
dear have you ever been to me, that, had I lost you, I would not, .1 
could not have survived ! In your well-being, my very existence is 
bound up. Become what I expect of you, — a man— a man of honor, — a 
prudent man, endowed with the esteem of society, — and my old age 
may perhaps still enjoy the peace and honor denied to my youth. — 
But falter in the path, — disgrace yourself, — and I shall, become a 
widow indeed !” 

A warm embrace sealed the compact between them, which Basil 
long promised himself to hold sacred ; and again and again, previous 
to his embarkation in London life, had poor Lady Annesley dwelt 
solemnly upon the fact that, possessing only a life income, should he 
involve himself in debt, she would be unable to afford him relief. 

“Think,” she had said to him at parting, “ think, dearest Basil, 
what would be the distress, the despair, of this tranquil little house- 
hold, over which the quiet years have been rolling unfelt, 

should any mischance befall you ! Govern your conduct, my dear 
son, by the conviction, that disgrace to you' would convey death to 
your mother !’’ 

And after all this, with the impression still strong on his mind of 
the noble dignity of that mild woman, and the strong motherly love 
mysteriously concealed under her solemn deportment, he had done 
evil, — he was in debt, — and for present relief he had already resolved 
to refer himself to the interposition of A. 0., the Money Lender ! — 

CHAPTER II. 

“ Which is the merchant here, and which the Jew ?” — Shakspeare. 
Long and tedious did the' hours appear to Basil Annesley, which 
served on the morrow to convey a post-paid letter to the Hungerford 
Coffee-house, and bring back a reply from the individual so bitterly 
contemned by his Club. 

Three times in the course of the day, did he return home to his 
lodgings, in hopes the post might have brought an answer which, he 
trusted, would afford a first step of extrication from the difficulties in 
which he had wantonly involved himself. Still he was disappointed. 
On his table were divers notes and letters; — some of invitation ; — 
some endited with the clerkly percision announcing, only too painful- 
ly to the conscious debtor, strong hints that hi3 earliest convenience 
must convey a settlement to some expectant creditor : — but not a 
syllable from A. O. ! — 

In the evening, he had an engagement ; and, just as, full-dressed, 
but with his spirits in complete dishabille, he was quitting his lodg- 
ings, the double rap of the last evening post, caused the door of his 
small dwelling to vibrate, and Basil to recoil a step or two in the 
passage, while his servant offered the ignominious towpence in ex- 
change for a shabby-looking rqissive, which was to convey tidings of 
life or death to the delinquent 

The interview was accorded. “The following day, at noon;’’ — 
the place, obsure and strange enough, — No. 21 Greek street, Soho. 

Daring his sojourn in London, he had probably traversed Greek street, 
Soho, fifty times, without noting more than that it contained the 
usual double lines of tedious unmeaning brick-houses peculiar to 
English streets ; — diversified only by varieties of Insurance plates, — 
the Phoenix, or the Sun- fire, — or exhibiting the interesting F. P., prat- 
ing of the whereabout of their fire-plugs. But now, every house ap- 
peared instinct with meaning. Its glaziers’ or grocers’ shops, were 
not as the shops of other glaziers and grocers; and on arriving with, 
in a few doors of the number specified by A. O.’s communication, he 
began to count the houses, the earlier to familiarize himself with the 
“ complement external” of the Money-lender’s habitation. 

It was one of those square roomy mansions, which still announce 
that Soho was a fashionable quarter of the town, when the higher 
classes, taking sudden fright at the insalubrity of the banks of the 
river, — till the reign of the Second James their favorite residence, — 
migrated as far as possible from the influence of its miasma. The 
door, ill-fitted to its shrunken disjointed case, was of that dingy och- 
rous complexion, peculiar to the loungers of the Cheltenham prome- 
nades ; and even the worn-out and broken caneblinds of the parlor 
were so closely surmounted by closed shutters, as to preclude all idea 
that the house was inhabited. It sounded hollow as the grave, when, 
in spite of appearances, Basil hazarded a modest knock and gentler 
ring ! — 

Promptly, however, a3 at some well. lacqueyed lordly mansion, the 
summons was answered. An old woman o f crippled shape, and hav- 
ing a complexion many degrees darker than her tawny front and the 
dirty fly-cap that surmounted it, opened and held wide open the door, 
not as if awaiting his inquiries, but as though he were expected and 
had only to enter. A glance at his feet, as hinting a hope that the 
door-scraper had not been overlooked, was all she vouchsafed him. 

“ In the back parlor,” croaked her discordant voice, before he had 


recovered self-possession enough to ask a question ; and he saw that 
he was to make his own way in this desolate temple of echoes. With 
his heart beating more irregularly than he would have cared to own 
to his friend Blencowe, Basil accordingly advanced along the wide 
but bare and dirty passage, and knocked at the second door, which 
was slightly ajar. No one replied ;— and he accordingly pushed it 
open, and went in. 

CHAPTER III. 

“ Let him who wants to know the value of money, try to borrow some.” 

Popular Proverb . 

The chamber into which Basil had thus unceremoniously introduc- 
ed himself, though empty, had ail the appearance of having been re- 
cently occupied. Volumes of sulphurous yellow smoke ascended 
from a black mass of coals in the rusty grate, interspersed with damp 
shavings,. in token that some effort at least had been made to ignite 
them; and an old-fashioned bureau standing open against the wall, 
exhibited files of papers, and one or two open letters, besides a com- 
pact phalanx of diminutive rouleaux, apparently of sterling value.— 
Soon after Basil had seated himself, the Money-lender made his ap- 
pearance. There was nothing, however, very remarkable' in his per- 
son. Though above the middle height, a certain ignoble character 
of form and gesture deprived him of the advantages usually insepara- 
ble from a commanding stature. His dress, if neither coarse nor rus- 
ty, was of an inferior cut ; and though his dark eyes might have pas- 
sed for intelligent in the head of any other man, there was a dis- 
crepancy between the blackness of their tint, enhanced by the pro- 
fuse black eyelashes and eyebrows by which they were overhung, 
and the scanty grey curls almost approaching to white, that figured 
on either side ahead, the crown of which was bare and lustrous. It 
was, in short, a face and figure, which, in squalid attire, with a beard 
and a slouched hat, would have passed muster among the itinerant 
dealers in old clothes, whose cries disturb the inhabitants of the West 
End, at an hour when none but Jews, fish-women, chickweed boys, 
scavengers’ carts, and twopenny postmen, are astir in the slumberous 
streets of the more civilized quarters of the town. 

Almost the first words which this singular individual addressed to 
Basil, was to impart to him the information that he (A. O.) in deal- 
ing with all classes of the people, had laid it down as a rule to place 
confidence only in those who showed confidence in him.” 

“ In addressing myself to one known to me only by the initials of 
A. O., I did not feel bound to disclose more than my own of B. A./* 
replied the young soldier, gravely. 

“Mine are pretty universally known to express my real name/’ 
replied the Money-lender. “ I am called Abednego Osalez ; and as 
this is the first time, I fancy, we have done business together. I must 
enquire whether you bring me no letter of recommendation from some 
other of my clients ?” 

“ From no one,” replied Basil, spontaneously recalling to mind the 
the unsatisfactory terms in which the very clients on which he pinned 
his reliance, treated him in his absence. 

“ It is merely my newspaper advertisements, then, which have at- 
tracted your notice ?’’ — 

“ Not altogether,” replied Annesley. “ Mere than one of my 
brother officers have been extricated from pecuniary difficulty by 
your assistance. From them, I became a war e of your mode of busi- 
ness ; and — ” 

“ Did they not also add,” interrupted the Money-lender, “ their 
exhortations that you should not apply to me , unless your case were 
desperate ? Did they not tell you, if any other earthly resource be 
open to you, beware of A. O. ? Did they not call me shark, cormo- 
rant, vulture, usurer, Jew ? You know they did ! Not a mess of any 
regiment in the service in which I am not thus opprobriated.” 

Basil, who already repented his indiscretion, in having allowed the 
words “ brother officers,” to escape him, as too clearly indicative of 
his social position, would not, by an affirmative reply, hazard the ex- 
posure of his friends to the vindictive reprisals of such an enemy as 
A.O. 

“ You are cautious, young gentleman 1” observed the Money-len- 
der, whose large dark eyes seemed to penetrate the most hidden 
thoughte cf his companion. “Cautiop, however, is not the parent of 
confidence. You come to me in the hope of opening my strong-box ; 
and will scarcely accomplish the exploit with close lips and a closer 
heart. A calling such as mine necessitates some degree of mystery; 
but when once a bona.jide negotiation commences, all must be above- 
board, — all truth and daylight. I have told you my name is Abed- 
nego Osalez. I now ask the favor of your own ?” — 

Still, Basil hesitated. He could not bear to disgrace the honora- 
ble patronymic borne by the object of his filial veneration, by inscrip- 
tion in the registers of a Jew ! 

“ You will be pleased to remember,” resumed the Money-lender, 
“ that no act can be authentic between us, unless the business be ne- 
gotiated under our real names. If, therefore, you scruple to intrust 
me with yours, this interview has lasted too long already.” 

Apprehending, from bis decided mode of uttering these words, that 
the peremptory Jew was about to rise and dismiss him, the agitated 
applicant murmured, in a low voice, “ My name, sir, is Annesley.” 


BROTHER JONATHANEXTRA. — ABEDNEGO. 


1 Annesley ?” — reiterated the Money-lender, as if requiring him to 
ye more articulate. “ Basil Annesley.” 

The Jew rose with some precipitation from his seat; and, fora 
noment or two, occupied himself in taming over the papers lying 
ipen on his bureau, as if in search of writing materials, to enable him 
o take notes of the business of his new client. 

“ You have lately, I believe, entered the Grenadier Guards ?” — 
aid he, still addressing Annesley, but without turning round. 

“ I have been rather more than a year in the army.” 

“ And during that short space of time, you have contrived to em- 
mrrass y ourself ?” 

“ Many contrive to do so in less than a twentieth part of it !” re. 
died Basil, as if resolved not to be brow-beaten by a stranger. 

“Not the well.conditioned son of a mother in straitened circum- 
tances,” replied the insolent Jew, who seemed endowed with an in- 
utive insight into the position of his new client. 

“ J applied to you, sir, a3 a Money-lender, not as a counsellor,” 
aid Basil, haughtily, now rising in his turn. “ My business may be 
triefly explained, — I am, as you seem to be aware, the only son of the 
ate Sir Bernard Annesley. I have immediate necessity fora sum of 
£350. — My allowance of three hundred a year — ” 

She allows you three hundred a-year ? — too much — too much for 
,er to give, or you to receive 1” muttered the Jew, in indistinct tones, 
f which, however, not a syallable escaped the ear of Annesley. 

“ I observed, sir, that my allowance of three hundred a-year, and 
ny pay,” persisted Basil, not noticing his interruption, n< would en- 
able me to pay you off, by monthly ins alments, both interest and 
irincipal, in the course of the next two years and a half.’ 5 

“ And should you die in the interim, young gentleman, what securi- 
y have I, pray, for my money ?” — demanded the usurer with a sneer. 

44 Surely 1 could effect an insurance on my life, assigning you the 
'Oliey ?” inquired Basil, in a less assured voice. 

You have very soon become f amiliar with the expedients of an 
mbarrassed man,” murmured the Jew,— still, without turning to- 
ards him, but apparently engrossed by the money and arrangement 
f the papers on his bureau. 

“ I was informed by a brother officer that such was the mode in 
/hich you had arranged a similar matter for himself,” replied Basil, 
vith increasing hesitation. 

44 Captain Blencowe,eh ? — ay ! I remember Six years ago, how- 
ver ! Your friend has a good memory, — so have I : and I admit 
hat he redeemed the debt like a gentleman, some time within the 
erm of his acceptance.” 

“I should be glad to convince you that you would obtain in my- 
elf a client equally honorable,” rejoined Basil, somewhat reassured. 

44 The will may not be wanting, but I doubt the means. Young 
llencowe belonged to a moneyed family. — I knew with whom I had 

0 deal. Were you to fail me, I might put the whole Annesley fami- 
^ into thumbscrews, without eliciting so much as a ten-pound note 

1 your behoof. Persons of my occupation, sir, are forced to keep a 
retty accurate tariff of the fortunes and consciences of those likely 
d come within their line of business. I had a relative of yours, one 
f the Yorkshire Annesleys, two years in the King’s Bench at my, 
xpense.” 

“ But I concluded he paid you at last?” demanded Basil, too igno- 
int of the connectionship of his father’s family, to refute any such 
ccusation. 

44 With his life.— He died in prison, leaving me the creditor of 
eirs who were penniless.” 

Strange to tell, there was a tone of triumph rather than a vexation, 
l the Money-lender’s mode of alluding to this frustration of his 
iterests. 

44 But I, who am both young and solvent,” persisted Basil, 44 do not 
itend to defraud you, either by living or dying. I give you my word 
f honor as a gentleman, that—’* 

44 The word of honor of a gentleman, has no value, and should 
ave no mention in a money-dcaling transaction,” interrupted the 
sw. — 44 The affair between us is simply one of speculation. You 
r ant money ; I have to sell it to you, as much as possible to my own 
dvantage. I must therefore either have good security and fair inter- 
3t ; or without security, such interest as may induce me to incur the 
sk.” 

44 1 have already offered you the latter alternative,” said Basil, 
luntly. 

44 1 have been offered two hundred per cent, by needy men before 
ow,” replied the Money-lender, with a curl of the lip, 44 and with- 
it swollowing the bait. The mere promise of a stranger is not 
cactly worth its weight in gold. In the first place, Mr. Annesley, 
ive you even so much as reflected upon the amount of the interest 
' yoar debt, and keeping up the policy of insurance, besides the 
tpense of the execution of the deed, added to the sinking fund for 
ie gradual defrayment of the three hundred and fifty pounds ?” — 
emanded the pragmatical Jew. 

44 I am in the receipt of four hundred and thirty pounds a year,” 
, plied Basil, evasively. 

44 And for what purpose is it assigned to you V 9 retorted the Money- 
nder. “ To aflord you a becoming position in the world ! — What 


right, therefore, have you to alienate this provision, so as to deprive 
yourself of the necessaries of your sphere of society, and become ex- 
posed to the shame of petty embarrassments ?” 

44 None !” replied Basil, astounded at the inexplicable liberties 
taken by his new acquaintance, yet not daring to resent remonstrances 
apparently indicative of favorable dispositions towards him. 44 But 
the shame to which I may expose myself by the limitation of my in- 
come, is surely nothing compared with that which would befall me a 
month hence, when my acceptances fall due, and I am unable to do 
them honor.” 

44 But you are still a minor ?” remonstrated the Jew. 

44 Those who were satisfied with my endorsements, asked no ques- 
tions, contenting themselves with the engagement of a gentleman, 
the son of a man of honor,” replied Basil with firmness. 

44 At least,” said he, fixing his dark eyes approvingly upon the in- 
genuous countenance of young Annesley, 44 at least there was value 
received for these bills of exchange ? You are not applying to me for 
the means of covering another usurious transaction ? Do not deceive 
me, young sir; for through my extensive connexions with the mon- 
eyed world, I have the means of ascertaining the truth to a guinea.” 

44 I have no disposition to deceive you, Mr. Abednego Osalez,” re- 
plied young ^.nnesley, with some hauteur ; 44 but if I came not hither 
to seek a counsellor, still less am I disposed to find a confessor in my 
man of business. The purpose for which I require these fnnds, re- 
gards you as little as the mode by which you have acquired them, so 
as to enable you to supply me, regards myself. I ask no questions s 
let me advise you to be equally discreet.” 

44 There is no occasion for iou to ask questions !” — said his singu- 
lar companion, continuing to examine his papers, and file them care- 
fully, all the time he was speaking. They are answered for you with- 
out inquiry. The world has explanations stereotyped to your hand. 
Every body knows the Money-lender to be a Jew— the Jew a usurer 
— the usurer a criminal in the eye of the law. Christ drove the 
money-changers from his Temple : man expels them from his tribu- 
nals. The money-lending Jew is one who must have acquired his 
funds by extortion and fraud ; one who probably began life as a Cor- 
sair — pickpocket — resurrection man — assassin — no matter what a- 
mount of obloquy you heap upon his head !— He cannot have too nar- 
rowly escaped the hands of the hangman ! He cannot be too grossly 
stigmatized, he has caused the ruin of thousands — 

And if a man have need of poison now, 

Here lives the caitiff wretch would sell it him ! 

Admit that I portray myself as you have heard me portrayed ? Why 
therefore should you institute further inquiries into my conduct or 
its motives?” 

. Basil Annesley was startled out of all self- possession by this strange 
appeal. From the first few words uttered by his new acquaintance, he 
had been impressed by the superiority of his tone and phraseology 
not only to his garb and mode of life, but to a calling affording in- 
ducements for such base disguisal as that which had first brought 
them into collision. But now, the unexpected eloquence of his words 
and sudden energy cf his gestures, were characteristic of the scholar 
and the gentleman, rather than of the vulgar Jew, — the jobbing mon- 
ey-broker ! — Poor Basil almost quailed under the vivid glances of the 
excited man who gave utterance to this petulant apostrophe. 

44 1 have, I admit, heard you ungraciously spoken of,” said he, 
with a degree of frankness rivalling that cf his interlocutor. 44 That 
what was told me exercised no very important influence over my 
opinions, may be inferred from my presence here.” 

44 You are here simply because your position is desperate !” — cool- 
ly rejoined A. O. 44 You are here because there is no hope else- 
where. You may also perhaps, have heard from Captain Biencowe, 
and other victims who have escaped without serious injury from my 
clutches, that even the crocodile of the shores of Paetolus is some- 
times moved to a caprice of pity ; and are willing to try whether any- 
thing in your youth and inexperience may reach liis milder mood.” 

44 My youth and inexperience at least encourage you to trifle with 
me !”— -cried Basil, with a rising color, more enraged by the ironical 
smile pervading the countenance of A. O , than by his mere words. 
And, having snatched his hat from the window-seat, he was prepar- 
ing without c remony to quit the room. 

44 In all money-dealings, Mr. Annesley,” said his companion, un- 
dismayed by this tacit threat of breaking up the conference, 44 you will 
find the command of your own temper five per cent, in your favor. 
You cannot afford to quarrel with me. At this moment, I am the 
necessary evil which must redeem you from the still greater of im- 
mediate dishonor. Do me the favor, sir, to sign this paper,” said he, 
placing in the hands of Basil, one which, during their conference, he 
had been quietly preparing. “It is, as even your slight knowledge 
of business must assure you, cf no legal value. It is ihe obligation 
of a gentleman, and must derive its sole importance from a gentle- 
man’s signature. It will neither enable me to imprison my debtor 
nor molest him ; but it will remind Sir Bernard Annesley’s son, that, 
within three years after attaining his majority, he has engaged to pay 
me back a sum of four hundred pounds ; whereof the interest, at five 
per cent, shall be quarterly forthcoming.” 

Basil took the promissory note into his hands, and seeing that it 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA. — ABEDNEGO. 


5 


was phrased strictly according to the announcement of A. O., con- 
ceived himself well off at having so small a bonus as £50 demanded 
of him as the penalty of the transaction. But what was his amaze- 
ment when, on taking his place at the bureau, to sign the paper, he 
found lying before him, a printed check of one of the first banking 
houses oi the WeA End, bearing the signature of Abednego Osalez, 
and directing the firm in question to “ Pay to Mr. Annesley or bear- 
er the sum of four hundred pounds!” 

Scarcely able to believe the evidence of his eyes — his cheeks flush- 
ed by the excitement oi the moment — his heart throbbing almost to 
agony with the consciousness of release from the first great embar- 
rassment of his life, Basil, ere he accepted one documentor executed 
the other, was eager to express his astonishment and gratitude to one 
whom he could scarcely regard in any other light than that of a bene- 
factor; but on turning round for the purpose, he found that A. O., 
instead of remaining behind his chair to watch his proceedings, was 
engaged at the door in earnest colloquy with the unsightly crone, who 
officiated as his clerk of the presence. 

“ Tell him I am engaged — say it is impossible for me to see him 
this morning,” said the Money lender, in the imperative tone he had 
assumed in the earlier part of his colloquy with Basil 

“ 1 have toid him so already, sir,” croaked the old woman , “ but 
he will not be denied. He has got out of his cabriolet, and is stand- 
ing on the door. steps awaiting.” 

“Let him wait I 3 ’ said the Money-lender. “If he persist in com- 
ing in, show him into the front parlor, and open one of the shutters, 
till I am ready to receive him. — You perceive, Mr. Annesley, that I 
am waited for. Spare me therefore the effusions of thankfulness I 
see expanding upon your lips,” resumed A. O , turning towards Ba- 
sil, who stood transfixed beside the bureau, the check in one hand, 
and the promissory note in the other. “ Have you signed it con- 
tinued he, pointing to the latter document. “Be quick, if indeed you 
have carefully perused the' terms. Never, while you live, put your 
name to a paper, of which you have not, to a syllable, mastered the 
contents. Nay, —spare me your declarations of confidence : you may 
have less grounds for gratitude than you suppose. Remember the fa- 
ble of the little fish thrown back into the river to become a bigger, by 
the wary angler. Be not too sure that the Money-lender is not fa- 
cilitating your first ingress into his net, in order to secure your re- 
turn.” 

Basil Annesley, who had now both read and signed the promissory 
note, and placed the printed check in his pocket-book, smiled at this 
sinister prognostication. 

“ I do not choose you to be ruined by anybody but myself,” ob- 
served the Money-lender with a smile : “ in proof of which, let me 
advise you to place that pocket-book in a securer place than your front 
pocket. Above all, deposit, this very morning, the money you are 
about to receive, with your own banker, so as to be ready for the ex- 
igencies, which well, well ! I will spare you my lecture 1” — said 

he, interrupting himself when he saw the color rising into the cheeks 
of Basil. “You receive sterling advice, I perceive, less thankfully 
than sterling coin.” 

“ The gentleman is in the parlor, sir/’ said the old woman, again 
thrusting in her dingy face and still dingier cap. 

“Sj much the better, 3 ’ replied the Money-lender, with a bitter 
sneer. “ It may serve to bring so fine a gentleman to his senses, to 
make acquaintance with the mice and spiders of my desolate habita- 
tion. 3 ’ 

In another moment Basil Annesley, still misdoubting whether he 
were awake or asleep, had shaken hands with the new acquaintance 
who had acted by him the part of an old friend, and was once more 
in the street. A few paces before him was leisurely proceeding a 
plain but handsome cabriolet, of which the tiger who held the reins 
wore a plain undress livery. But the horse of which the little fellow 
was in charge was not to be mistaken. It was one renowned in the 
glories of Hyde Park, a celebrated cab, announcing that the fine gen- 
tleman just then cooling his heels in the dismantled dining-room of A. 
O. was no less a person than his grace the Duke of Rochester. 

CHAPTER IV. 

That day was a day ol overflowing joy to Basil Annesley ! Had 
the pavement, intervening between Soho Square, and St. James’s 
Street, been tessela ted with gems, after I he fashion of the sanctuaries 
of the Alhambra or Aladdin’s palace, instead of displaying the half 
frosty, half. filthy flagstones of one of the least inviting quarters of 
the West End, he could not have felt more elated or have made his 
way more llghtsomely of foot than on his road to Herries’ ; where, af- 
ter receiving his four hundred pounds, he paid the first half year’s in- 
terest thereon in advance to the account of Abednego Osalcz, E-q., 
in order that, for twelve months to come, he might be conscience- 
clear on the subject. 

Let him who, after laboring under the pressure of pecuniary em- 
barrassments has ever found himself suddenly and unexpectedly re- 
leased from thraldom, declare whether any earthly triumph can ex- 
ceed that soul-stirring emancipation ! 

The king may make a belted knight, 

A marquis, duke, and a’ that ; 


but, far surpassing any creation recorded in the peerage, is that of a 
free man, out of a wretch on whose shoulder the gripe of the bailiff 
has been felt by agonizing anticipation. 

As regarded Annesley’s feelings, he was now out of debt ; for he 
was in debt only within limit of his means. Four and twenty hours 
before, he had looked forward to the dreadful 28th of December, 
which was to find him in possession of three hundred pounds, or steep 
him in shame to the very lips, as a criminal to the day of execution. 

He would not have felt half so overjoyed at being declared heir-ap- 
parent to the Duke of Rochester, as to know that four hundred pounds 
were that day placed to his credit at Coutts’s. 

How little — how very little — db those real potentates of modern 
times, who sway the destinies of nations and individuals with a rod of 
gold, and issue their decrees in bank notes and Exchequer bills, the 
bankers of money-spinning Europe, conjecture the fearful nature of 
the passions imprisoned in that Pandora’s box, their iron safe ; the 
world of magic spells, compassed within the simple parchment covers 
of the books of their constituents ; the fiat of life and death occasion- 
ally inscribed on one of the printed checks which their clerk mechani- 
cally cashes, enregistering the number of the notes he gives in ex- 
change with as cool deliberation as though the heart of the expectant 
“ bearer 33 throbbed not with ecstasy at the sight of those bringers of 
glad tidings to his necessitous household ! — The whole romance of 
civilization is in fact comprised within the magic initials of L. S. D. 
Money is indeed Power — the “ Open sesame” to the seemingly im- 
pervious rock of human destiny ! — Of all the masquerading guises in 
which false Philosophy loves to parade herself, contempt of money, 
the ladder by which almost every earthly advantage is attainable, is , 
surely the most absurd ! 

Poor Basil among the rest, had often blazoned forth his contempt 
of riches; laboring to reconcile his mother to her straitened means 
by assurances of his indifference to the dross of this world ; nay, had 
even deceived himself by frequent protestations of indifference to the 
gorgeous gew-gaws of opulence. He fancied himself content, nay 
proud and happy to be poor. And now, the possession of a paltry 
four hundred pounds, was driving him half out of his wits for joy ! 
For though the origin of his embarrassments was of a nature far from 
dishonoring to his head or heart, it was one he dared not have dis- 
closed to his austere mother. Almost, indeed, would he have prefer- 
red to pass in her eyes for the dupe of the gaming-table, or for a friv- 
olous spendthrift, ruined by idle extravagance, than to expose the 
truth 

Not one guinea of the money had been applied to his own use. 
The necessities of another had caused him to pledge his honorable 
name beyond his power of redemption. And yet, he had not even 
enjoyed the happiness of claiming sympathy from that other in his 
embarrassment. He had been forced to pretend opulence at the mo- 
ment of signing the bills of exchange, and indifference on the subject • 
ever since, lest the obligation should afflict the delicate and high- 
minded individual whom his interference had been the means of res- 
cuing from the utmost extremity of distress. 

There was ojily one drawback on his exulting happiness: his mo- 
ther’s illness I She had written to him to defer his customary Christ- 
mas visit— saying that she herself was ill, and that Nicholas, the old 
gardener, was on his death-bed. Even this intelligence, however, was 
less acutely felt than when sinking under the apprehension that his 
difficulties might shortly aggravate the evil; and now, disregarding 
her prohibition, and forestalling his purposed Christmas visit, he 
readily obtained a few days’ leave of absence; and, armed with a 
thousand little tokens of kindness for the invalids, hurried to Barling- 
ham. Instead of affording Lady Annesley time to renew her prohi- 
bition, he chose to take her by surprise. 

Few are the contingencies in this world which justify taking peo- 
ple by surprise. Husbands and wives have often had to rue the of- 
ficious affection which impelled them prematurely into each other’s - 
presence ; and the best household, the best school, the most united 
family, the most attached circle of friends, cannot be too accurately 
apprised of the ex^ ct moment at which the absent one is likely to rush 
once more into their arms. 

Poor Basil reached the Grange, his whole heart overflowing not 
simply with the milk of human kindness but with its cream. Late in 
the evening, he reached Lyndhurst by the coach ; and preferring to 
restore circulation to his chilly limbs by a walk cf a mile and a half 
across the fields, to a three miies jumble in a postchaise, through one 
of the most unsatisfactory lanes that ever be sloughed the wagon of 
the despairing farmer, he accepted the offer of a countryman to ac- 
company him with his valise, and cheerfully cut across to Barlingham, 
by a way familiar to him from boyhood. 

To beguile the dreariness of his lonely walk, he almost uncon. 
sciov 1} burst forihintoasong, the produce of one oithe olden poets. 

Truce to thy fond misgivings, 

These fruitless tdars give o’er, — 

No absence can divide us, love, 

No parting part us more ! 

Mountains and seas may rise between, 

To mock our baffled will ; 

But heart in heart, and soul in soul, 

We bide together still. 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA. — ABEDNEGO. 


Where’er I go, or far or near, 

I cannot be alone ; 

Thy voice is ever in mine ear, 

Thy hand press’d in mine own ; 

Thy head upon my pillow rests, 

Thy words my bosom thrill, 

And heart in heart, and soul in soul, 

We bide together still. 

And when stern death shall work his worst, 

And all our joys are done, 

E’en by the mystery that unites 
The dial and the sun , 

Though one exist in heavenly bliss, 

One in this world of ill, 

Vet heart in heart, and soul in soul, 

We’ll bide together still. 

But as his voice died away, the loneliness seemed drearier than be- 
bre. The weather was frosty. Not a breath was stirring : the moon 
tad risen ; and undfer its influence and that of the bitterness of the 
weather, the landscape exhibited a ghastly and death-like appear- 
nce. The fields were free from all transit of living thing : not so 
nuch as a plough left upturned in the furrows, for the readier recom- 
lencement of the morrow’s labors, as at more propitious seasons of 
he year. Not so much as a stoat, or urchin, stealing in quest of 
lidnight prey from hedge to hedge. And when at last Basil came in 
iew of the Grange, standing black and desolate in the moonlight, in 
he centre of its open square of dark and leafless trees, it was like 
pproaching the uninhabited castle of some fairy tale : not a dog to 
ive tongue at sound of their intruding steps, as they crossed the lit- 
le bridge leading from the moat to the chief entrance. And, lest 
*ady Annesley should be alarmed by the unwonted sound of the door- 
ell at so late an hour, her son made his way round to the postern 
wading to the offices, and entered the kitchen with a degree of hu- 
lility most vexatious to his temporary esquire of the body, who had 
nticipated that, in escorting to the Grange the heir-apparent of the 
imily, he should force a triumphal entry, drums beating and colors 
ying. Basil’s hurried injunction to the t wo astonished women-ser- 
ants, who screamed aloud on beholding him, to take care of his va- 
se and its bearer, while he made his way into the house, scarcely 
econciled poor Hodge to the indignity of stealing into the house, like 
thief in the dark. 

Leaving the Hampshire bumpkin to the consolations of a blazing 
ire and substantial supper, young Annesley seized the candle pre- 
mted by the blushing, curtseying, handmaiden of old Dorcas ; from 
hom he had already extracted that his mother and her waiting- wo- 
lan were in attendance upon old Nicholas, who had been removed 

> a bed-room on the first floor, having, it was feared, not many days 

> live. 

“ My lady has ordered tea in half ah hour in her sitting-room,” 
Ided the damsel. “ Shall I acquaint her, sir, that you are here ? — 
f would you rather I should go and make a fire, Mr. Basil, in your 
wn room ? 

Young Annesley accepted the latter alternative. Unwilling to 
artle the dying man by too sudden an appearance in his chamber, 
? determined to await the coming of his mother in her own apart- 
ent. 

The sitting-room usually occupied by Lady Annesley during the 
inter months, was a small chamber on the first floor, adjoining her 
jd-room. The ceiling, as in all the rooms in the Grange, was not 
ily low, but traversed and deformed by heavy beams ; and the floor, 
’ stucco or composition. Such a chamber, however, its embayed 
indows being thickly curtained, and its floor concealed by a carpet, 
more easily rendered warm and comfortable for the long cheerless 
inter evenings, than one of nobler proportions ; and the rich saloons 
f many a lordly castle might have found scope for envy during that 
tter weather, in the little snuggery to which, when Basil made his 
ay into the sanctuary, a blazing wood fire was affording the cheer- 
il glow so welcome to the eye of the benighted traveller. 

This room was, of all the house, the one least familiar to Basil, 
was four years since he had spent a winter at the Grange. His re- 
irn from Germany had chanced in the summer season ; and the pre- 
?ding Christmas, having recently joined his regiment, he had been 
reed to pass in town. During his holidays, Lady Annesley usual- 
inhabited her drawing room on the ground floor, as containing her 
Usical instruments, and the book. cases calculated to afford amuse- 
snt or instruction to her son ; and it was only on occasion of some 
ief interview between them, that she received him in what she 
lied her dressing-room, though the ceremonies of her simple toilet 
ere performed in the sleeping-room adjoining. It possessed, accord- 
gly, all the charm of prohibition in the eyes of young Annesley. 
was the blue chamber of the Grange — the only one into whieh he 
is not permitted to penetrate uninvited. 

On the present occasion, he felt privileged. His visit was as the 
"urn of the prodigal son; and he chose to anticipate the favors re- 
wed for such an incident. Moreover, Hannah had informed him 
U the only fire then burning, was in my lady’s room ; and the tem- 
rature of that December night was so little to be trifled with, that 
entertained no scruple about invading the forbidden precincts. 


“ I don’t wonder my mother is so fond of it !” was Basil’s ejacula- 
tion, as, stationed upon the Persian rug before the fire, he cast his 
eyes round the cheerful chamber, in which Lady Annesley had judi- 
ciously assembled such remnants of antique furniture as she had 
found at the Grange ; — the old carved chairs and tables, and a twist- 
ed legged cabinet or two, imparting the Elizabethan character he had 
recently observed as the height of the fashion. From the carved 
ebony desk on which Lady Annesley’s handkerchief was still lying, 
to the priedieu in a recess near the fire-place, which was fitted up as 
an oratory, everything was so strictly in keeping as the bower cham- 
cer of a lady-fair of the sixteenth century, that it might have served 
as a study for Cattermole, or as the boudoir of sweet Anne Page. 

“ And yet what utter solitude — what isolation from her caste and 
kind !” was his second reflection, on recalling to mind that this snug- 
gery, so charming as a retreat from the severity of a winter’s night, 
was Lady Annesley’s abode from year’s-end to year’s-end, season 
after season ! (l A woman must have either a very good, or a very 
bad conscience, to find her happiness in such complete alienation 
from society.” 

That the former alternative was the origin of his beloved mother’s 
retreat, was so naturally his conviction, as to excuse the second con- 
jecture, though breathed only to himself; and regarding that ele- 
gantly antiquated room rather as the oriel of a Lady Abbess than as 
the boudoir of a woman of the world, Basil did new homage to the 
excellent taste which had converted the desolate walls of an old farm 
house into a retreat so enviable. 

It was not with him there , however, as in the den of the Money- 
changer. He felt it no treachery to examine, more leisurely than his 
mother’s presence on the spot bad ever yet enabled him, the objects 
around him. They were part and parcel of his mother, even as he, 
her only son, was a portion of herself; and the time must come, 
though he had never hazarded the anticipation, when they would be- 
come his own. 

In the tediousness therefore, of waiting for Lady Annesley’s ap- 
pearance, he cast his eyes from the heavy Persian carpets muffling 
the floor, to the bronze lamp, brightening every nook of the antiqua- 
ted chamber. On the chimney ledge of carved Portland stone, against 
which he was leaning, stood two old agate chalices of great beauty; 
and between them, on a slab of green jasper, an antique bronze of 
considerable value, though exhibiting only an unsightly reptile, form- 
ed of that matchless metal of Corinth, of which all modern imitations 
fail to acquire the glowing tinge arising from the admixture of the 
more precious metals in the outpourings of the rich old city from 
whose burning ruins fused forth the metal unwittingly created by the 
spoliating hands of man. 

On the wall opposite the fire place, hung a fine portait, well known 
to artists as one of the chef d' oeuvre of Sir Joshua : a likeness of Lord 
L. the father of Lady Annesley, wearing the numerous foreign 
orders commemorative of the distinctions of his diplomatic career. A 
marble statuette of a child ; an isolated pedestal of giallo antico filled 
one corner of the room, the others being completed with hanging 
shelves of carved ebony, filled with books; a female child, of exquis- 
ite grace and beauty, evidently the work of a first-rate hand, which 
Basil fancied he had heard whispered by Dorcas in his boyhood 
as an early portrait of his sister, Mrs. Vernon. 

All these objects he had noticed before. But upon Lady Annesley’s 
desk lay a square book covered with dark velvet, and having golden 
clasps of great beauty and value, like the mass books of wealthy 
Catholies, inducing the renewal of a suspicion that he had sometimes 
entertained, that his mother was secretly attached to a faith which 
was that neither of her husband nor her ancestors. Curious to de- 
termine whether it were indeed, a livre d } heures , he opened the 
clasps, when to his utter surprise, he found that the seeming book 
was a picture case, containing on one side the enamelled portrait 
of a man, — on the other, also under a glass, a lock of glossy hair of 
raven blackness. 

Basil stood utterly confounded. His late father, as he knew from 
portraits and from tradition, was fair as a German. His grandfather, 
Lord L,, seemed to be now looking him in the face, in attestation 
that he had no affinity with the individual depicted in that mysterious 
miniature. Lady Annesley was one of three daughters — his coheir- 
ess : nor, as well as Basil could recal to mind, had she a single male 
relation near enough to account for his picture being in her possess- 
ion. What was the meaning of all this ? He fixed his eye search- 
ingly upon the portrait, as if to interrogate its right and title to be 
found in his mother’s safe keeping. 

The face was one of more interest than regular beauty ; dark, 
high browed, having a profusion of black hair, and eyes that deri- 
ved a deeper shade from the reflection. The mouth was of rare 
beauty, yet unpleasing expression ; being tempered by an effusion of 
scorn little in accordance with the mournful character of the eyes ; 
and, on the whole, it was one of those countenances which fasci- 
nate the attention even while impressing the beholder with an un- 
favorable opinion of the original. The age of the personrepresen- 
ted could not exdeed five and-twenty, and the dress was that 
worn by English gentlemen at the commencement of the reign of 
George HI. 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA. — ABEDNEGO- 


The more the attention of Basil became rivited apon the picture, 
the stronger was the impression that some mysterious interest must 
be connected with an object which he had attained the age of twenty 
years without perceiving in his mother’s possession. In his boyish days 
in those holidays of affection when the secret treasures of a mother are 
brought to amuse a sick child or console an afflicted one, he had often 
been allowed to admire the contents of his mother’s cabinets ; curious 
shells, — rare minerals, antique rings, the old fashioned repeater, with 
its massive chain and enamelled gew gaws ; nay there was a valua- 
ble miniature of Lady Annesley’s mother, the Lady L , in her black 
lace hood and point stomacher, set in diamonds and enamel, with 
an L. and coronet, flourished in seed pearls upon the braid of hair 
forming the reverse, which had actually been allowed him as a play- 
thing in the convalescence succeeding a dangerous illness; — Yet 
of the miniature in the velvet cover he had never been suffered to 
obtain a glimpse ! 

He had just replaced it on the desk and himself upon the hearth 
rug, when the door was deliberately opened, and Lady Annesley 
made her appearance 

Prepared to find her as gratified by his visit as he was pleased with 
his own alacrity in paying it, Basil was moved almost to awe, by 
the rigid coldness of her mode of receiving him. After rebuking his 
disobedience in being there she coolly informed him that with danger- 
ous illness in hqjr household, his presence would be an inconve- 
nience. * 

“ In that case I will be off to-morrow,” replied Basil, trying to 
recover or conceal his chagrin. “ But, at least, dearest mother, 
forgive me so far as to bear with me this one night. I could not 
endure the anxiety of supposing you ill, without bringing my own 
eyes to verify the state of your health.” 

“ Another time honor me with your confidence so far as to believe 
that I tell you the exact truth, 5 ’ said Lady Annesley, sternly. “I 
have been ill. I am well again, — unless, indeed, the vexation of 
being thus broken in upon, should produce a recurrence of my in- 
disposition.” 

While expressing his hopes that he might not have so great an 
evil on his conscience,* Basil saw the eyes of his mother wander 
from his face to the desk, and from the desk back again to his va- 
rying countenance ; as if trying to decipher whether he had found 
time to examine the scattered contents of the chamber, or open the 
portrait. The confusion painted on Basil’s face, was, however, just 
as likely to arise from her ungracious mode of reception, as from 
consciousness of having indulged a prying curiosity ; and she remain- 
ed lost in perplexity. 

The entrance of Hannah with the rich old fashioned tea-service, 
which having placed upon the table, she was hurrying away again, 
now encouraged young Annesley to ask permission to visit the bed- 
side of the poor invalid, before the night became too far advanced to 
admit of disturbing him. 

“ Dorcas is with him night and day. He has all the attendance 
his state requires,” was Lady Annesley’s frigid reply. 

“ But as a satisfaction to myself, and, if I may be permitted to say 
so, to him. Poor Nicholas was always so fond of me ! 5 ’ — pleaded Basil. 

“ He is past deriving pleasure from the presence even of those 
who are dearest to him,” persisted Lady Annesley. “ Let me beg 
you rather to ascertain that your things have been safely deposi- 
ted in your room, by the person who accompanied you, — yonder poor 
girl, being scarcely strong enough to supply the place of him we are 
about to lose.” 

Basil accepted the hint. Nothing more likely to injure the candor 
of an ingenuous heart, than the undue possession of a secret. For 
the first time in his life, he attributed a stratagem to his mother ; con- 
vinced she was desirous to get rid of him, only that she might 
replace the mysterious portrait upon her desk in its accustomed con- 
cealment. 

He was so far justified in his suspicions, that on his return to 
the tea-table, refreshed after his day’s journey by purification from 
London soot and the dust of the road, a single glance towards the 
ebony desk convinced him that the picture had disappeared. He 
fancied, however, that his mother had detected even that momentary 
scrutiny ; for her deportment was, if possible, more ungracious than 
before. 

At any other moment, he would have attempted to dissipate her 
ill humour by allusions to the news of the day, and to the tittle- 
tattle of London life. But though excluded from the chamber 
of death, he could not forget that, at the distance of a few cham- 
bers from the one they occupied, lay an aged man, endeared to both 
by long association, and about to appear in the presence of his Ma- 
ker. This indeed was a sufficient excuse for the singular mood 
of Lady Annesley. In many persons, grief takes the form of an- 
ger. A proud spirit, unwilling to display itself covered with dust 
and ashes, uplifts its head with unbecoming pride, in order to conceal 
that temporary humiliation. 

As every stroke tells against a gamester in his vein of illfortune, 
whatever topic was selected by Basil to dispel the embarrassment of 
that painful tete-a-tete , seemed to aggravate her still further against 


Lady Annesley, as if desirous of promoting desultory conversa. 
lion, adverted to the young nephew of the Duke of Rochester, who 
had recently entered his regiment. 

“ I was formerly acquainted with his father, and uncle,” said she 
carelessly. 

‘‘His father is dead,” observed Basil; “and his uncle were 
perhaps better in his grave. He is in the jaws of perdition, — ruined 
soul, body, and estate ; a victim to play, with his fine fortune melt- 
ing away in the grasp of the Jews” — 

At that moment, an impulse of compunction, peculiar to gener- 
ous hearts, brought before him the beneficent conduct to A. O,, and 
the consciousness of his own obligations ; and without reflecting' 
on the singular effects such an outburst must produce on Lady An- 
nesley, who had not the slightest clue to the origin of his opinions, he 
suddenly veered round, and began expressing his contempt of the 
existing prejudices against that contemned class of the community ; 
citing every advantageous opinion or example ever adduced in favor 
of the people after God’s own heart, from Cumberland and Misg 
Edgeworth, back to the choicest authorities of the Judaic world. 

A sudden flush overspread the habitually pallid face of Lady 
Annesley. Her spirit seemed chafing within her. At the last she 
spake with her tongue. 

“ I c£»n readily understand,” said she, with undisguised bitterness, 
“ that the follies and vices of London, and the companionship into 
which they may have forced you, may have done something to.; 
wards relaxing the principles in which you have been reared, and 
the proud instincts of honorable descent. • But I had not expected 
you would so soon have stooped to this. I had not supposed that 
a few thousands conceded by these wretched unbelievers, these heirs^ 
of perdition, gilded over like the molten ealftill even Christian kings 
fall down and worship, — would so soon have obliterated in your 
honest heart the prejudice common to all ages— all nations — and con- 
sequently respectable even as a prejudice. For my part I loathe a 
Jew ; — I am proud to declare that I loathe a Jew ! Apart from the 
crime which stamped them with eternal condemnation, I detest 
their principles, I detest their practices. Wherever there are Jews, 
there is narrowness of mind — foulness of body — baseness of heart. 
They are a filthy people. Even as of old they bought with thirty pie~ 
cesof silver the blood of their Redeemer, would they still chaffer 
for the heart’s blood of the innocent ! I tell you Basil, I loathe them ! 
and those who induced you to entertain a contrary opinion, deceived 
you as much as they injured me /” 

The eyes of young Annesley were now fixed upon his mother 
with unqualified amazement. She, usually so mild, so serene, so 
low- voiced, so indifferent to the things of this world, to be excited 
by so slight a cause in"o this violent diatribe ! — And in the house of 
death ! — With her aged servitor expiring almost within hearing of 
her uncalled for vociferation ! 

Basil w r as awestruck ! He could not help surmising for a moment 
that his beloved mother’s reason might be effected by her atten- 
dance on the deathbed of her faithful old domestic, while weakened 
by the effects of recent indisposition. 

“ Believe me, dearest mother,” said he, “ I never heard you ac- 
cused of any partiality for these maligned people. My inclination 
in their favor is a weakness arising from peculiar circumstances of a 
nature wholly personal.” 

“ You have heard it !” cried Lady Annesley, unsubdued by his 
deprecation. “ Do not add deceit to the audacity of attempting to 
invade the sacredness of my thoughts and feelings. You have 
heard it !” — 

Again, terrified and grieved, young Annesley w T as about to enter 
upon his own disculpation. But as he advanced nearer towards his 
mother, he perceived that, overcome by the violence of her emotions, 
she had thrown herself back in her chair, and covered her face 
with her hands to conceal a frantic burst of tears. 

Basil Annesley stood transfixed. It was the first time in his life 
he had ever seen his mother shed a tear. 

CHAPTER V 

“ Oh ! mother — yet no mother.” — Savage. 

Cl I had no intention of offending you, dearest mother,” whispered 
Basil, when at length the subsiding of Lady Annesley’s emotiou 
seemed to justify his addressing her. But, to his great surprise, on 
the withdrawal of her hands from her face to enable her to reply, her 
countenance had so completely resumed its usual rigidity, that all 
apology appeared superfluous. He now attempted to take into his 
own one of the hands which had been screening those features; 
but it was obstinately fixed to her side. 

“ Believe me, I had no intention of offending you,” reiterated the 
young man, with still more earnest affection. -«J 

“ Your excuses are a deeper offence than your indiscretion, re. 
plied Lady Annesley, in a harsh voice. “ Your coming hither at 
all, has disturbed and thwarted me. Your conduct, now you are 
here, seems scarcely likely to reconcile me to your disobedience.” 

u Dearest mother !’* cried Basil, stung by her severity out of his 
habitual deference of reserve, “ you well know that your wishes 


8 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA. — ABEDNEGO. 


\ 

i 

f 

{ 

j 

l 

I 

! 


l 

i 

\ 


i 

j 


( 

j 


r 


j 

j 


l 

i 

j 

t 

► 

$ 

f 


are laws to me, — that 1 would sacrifice my happiness here and here- 
after for your sake.” 

“ You are a large talker, Basil,” interrupted, Lady Annesley. “ It 
is easy to protest — easy to undertake services or sacrifices that can 
never be required of you. I requested you to abstain for the pres- 
sent, from visiting the Grange. Yet, you are here !” 

« I have already explained my motives,” cried Basil, eagerly — 

“ already pledged myself to immediate departure. If you wish it, 
mother, I will not wait till to-morrow— I will be off this very night, 

I can return te Lyndlrarst— I can sleep at the inn. It is late. The 
fellow who brought my baggage will scarcely be persuaded to return 
to-night. But early in the morning he shall be here in time to ena- 
ble me to start by the first coach.” 

Lady Annesley gazed a moment upon the young and handsome 
face, on which the most earnest sincerity was painted at that 

moment. , 

“ Abide here to-night, my son,” said she, calmly, at the close of 
her scrutiny. “ Another time, be more acquiescent.” 

u i assure you dearest mother, I should be well accommoda- 
ted at Lyndhurst : and it may be as well to be there in waiting 
tor the coach. I—” 

«» You will remain here, if you please !” interrupted Lady Annes- 
Sey, m a cold and positive tone. “ It is, as you observe, late ; and 
ihe hour is unseemly for traversing the' fields. The forest produces 
inconvenient neighbors, and dangerous company. The illness of^ 
ray poor Nicholas proceeded, in the first instance, from a rough en- 
counter on the road, one evening at dusk, on his return from convey- 
ing my letters to the post. I pray you, therefore, to remain here — ” 
“Ceitainly, if such be your desire.” 

iC But not the less to hasten your departure at an early hour to- 
morrow. I will even take my leave of you to-night., Basil ; for I 
must watch through the small hours, to enable poor Dorcas to take 
some sleep ; and shall probably retire to rest just as you are Stir- 
ling.” 

<4 As you please dear mother,” replied the dispirited young man, 
perceiving by her tone and gesture that these words implied dismis- 
sal for the night, “ If you must indeed watch by the poor old man, 

| can understand that my presence here must be importunate. — 
But if you would only permit me for this one night to take your 
place—” 

44 L have already expressed my pleasure on that point.” 

** At least, since you judge me too restless or careless for a nurse, 
(though you used to praise my care when i waited upon yourself du- 
ring your attack of ague last year,) at least, there is Hannah to re- 
lieve you. Hannah is a stout, active, trust}' girl, who would be none 
the worse for wanting, occasionally, a night’s rest.” 

»* She is not. to be trusted. The young are ever inefficient watch- 
ers. With them ‘the spirit may be willing, but the flesh is weak.’ — 
They have no distracting thoughts to keep their senses on the alert, 

no cares to render them wakeful. They lay their heads on their 

pillows, and are in Heaven till morning ; and when they attempt 
the watcher’s chair of penance, fancy their heads upon their pil- 
lows 1” 

“ If it be on that account you refuse my services,” observed Ba- 
sil, “ I promise you, mother, that I have cares enough in my keeping 
both of my own and of other people, to keep me as wakelul as you 
oould desire. 

Again did Lady Annesley intently examine her son. 

“ You have no right to have cares of your own,” said she ; u and 
I advise you to be cautious how you. become care keeper for others. 
Your own turn will come. You have your share, Basil, in the typi- 
cal inheritance of the sons of Adam, — the thorns which the earth 
was condemned to bring forth in punishment for the sin of our com- 
mon parents. Such is the commandment of a jealous God !” 

« 1 am more in fear of the penalty entailed upon my head by the 
fall of man,” observed Basil, in a low voice, “ »han of having to an- 
swer for any sins of my own parents. But, as I said before, mother, 
if it be because you think me a sleepy, he ad that you deny me the 

pleasure of relieving your guard this one night ” 

“ Once and for all, it is not on that account,” said Lady Annesley, 
in an angry voice ; “ you were not wont, Basil, to be so pertinacious 
or so inquisitive. Amend the fault before we meet again ; and show 
me that it is already repented by immediate compliance with my re- 
quests!. Retire to rest, that you may be stirring the earlier. — Yonder 
is your bed-candle. — Good night.” 

Basil Annesley was conscious at that moment of a chocking sen- 
sation in his throat, such as he had often experienced in childhood, 
when unjustly chidden; and which now almost suggested resistance 
to authority thus harshly exercised. He remained a moment doubt- 
ful whether to fling himself at Lady Annesley’s feet, and implore a 
more motherly entreatmenfc ; or stand forth reprovingly in all the ener- 
gy of his youthful sense of her injustice, and hazard a still stronger 
appeal. But that momentary pause recalled to his generous mind 
that his mother was harrassed by fatigue, and care worn by the dan- 
ger of her faithful servant; and he determined, as his filial piety had 
so often determined before, to submit and be patient 

After imprinting a ki&s upon the slender hand which, if no longer 


obstinately withheld from him was far from encouragingly held forth, 
he took the candle from the marble table, hastily lighted it, and 
silently withdrew ; eager to give vent, in his own chamber, to the 
emotions contending in his heart. 

But on his arrival there, he was struck by the order in which his 
things were laid out for him ; and the more than usual care with 
which his comfort had been provided for. — Hoping to obtain an in- 
terview with old Dorcas, and entreat her influence with her lady, to 
obtain him his due share in the family vigils, he strove to discover 
some deficiency entitling him to ring for assistance. — Impossible! — 
Everything was in its place — everything forthcoming ; the kettk be- 
side the fire, — the boot jack and slippers beside the chair. 

“I can, at all events, summon Hannah, on pretence of wishing 
to be called before daybreak,” said he, musing. 

Having fulfilled his intention, he anxiously awaited the tap at the 
door, announcing the usually assiduous attendance of the active dam- 
sel. But no knock was heard, — no Hannah made her appearance ; 
and when, weary of waiting and having twice poked up the fire into 
a blaze to beguile his impatience, he ventured to ring again, the same 
silence prevailed. Nothing was audible but the shrill whistling of 
the wind in the old corridor ; and now and then, a squeak and a scuf- 
fle among the merry mice, coursing each other in brigades, by moon- 
light, in the deserted chambers above. 

A third time did Basil make the attempt, which, he trusted, would 
summon poor Dorcas for a moment from the chamber of the invalid 
%hich lay at the extremity of an adjoining passage. But, lo ! when, 
instead of the expected tap, the door revolved slowly upon its hinges, 
it was his mother, and not her attendant, who stood before him ! 

“ Are you in want of anything, that you thus disturb the house ?*’ 
— said she, gravely. “I thought I had been careful in supplying all 
you could possibly need to-night.” 

“ I merely rang for Hannah, to say that- ” 

“ Hannah has retired to bed, and Dorcas is retiring,” persisted 
Lady Annesley. 44 When you released me just now, I took up my 
post for the night beside the siek man; satisfied that, having care- 
fully arranged your room with my own hands previous to joining you 
at tea, no further attendance would be wanting.— Is there anything I 
can procure or do for you ?” 

“ Could I have entertained the least idea, dearest mother, that you 

had already given yourself all this trouble on my account ” 

44 1 ask you again, is there anything further I can do for you ? — Be 
quick ! — My presence is required elsewhere.” 

44 Nothing on earth ” 

“ You rang, then, to summon the girl for a needless attendance ?” 
“ I rang to request I might be called at the earliest hour of morn- 
ing, to secure my obedience to your orders,” replied Basil, proudly. 

44 Did you suppose that l should leave the hour of your rising to 
chance ? Be satisfied ! — You shall be called betimes. And now, 
let me entreat you to abstain from further disturbance. You are in 
the house of sickness — perhaps to become, before the morning, the 
house of death !” 

Basil stood confounded at the unmerited harshness of his mother; 
and he did not recover his self-possession for many minutes after 
Lady Annesley quitted the room. His heart was now sorer than be- 
fore. He was more than ever stung by her severity, on finding it 
coupled with the vigilance of mother-love which had presided over 
the arrangements of his chamber. He felt that he must, indeed, be a 
grievous offender, since the affections of her heart were thus control- 
lable by the sternness of her displeasure. 

He now flung himself despondingly, into a seat before the fire ; and 
placing his feet upon the old-fashioned fender, and fixing his eyes 
upon the heavy brass dogs supporting the crackling logs — upon the 
hearth, tried to feel himself at home. It is strange how often the habita- 
tion familiar to us from infancy, seems less familiar and less a home 
to us, than the dwelling of the stranger. For the life and soul of him, 
Basil could not feel at home. lie kept dreading the re-entrance of 
his mother for further reprehension, yet equally feared to bolt the door 
against her return, least she should take offence at this seeming defi- 
ance. His very thoughts, under the influence of such impressions, 
did not seem secure from her intrusion. There were subjects on 
which he felt afraid to ponder. There were people he dared not pass 
in review, or recall with the tenderness of memory, lest he should find 
the severe eye of Lady Annesley fixed upon his face, prepared to scan 
and scrutinize the nature of his feelings. 

Mo?t people are conscious of the sort of disburthenment of thought 
and sentiment apt to follow a transition from cities to the country. 
In the quiet of the first night spePt out of town, disjointed images 
reconnect themselves ; ideas and conclusions assume a regular train 
of thought ; and Basil experienced all the desire of one suddenly 
enfranchised from the rabble and tumult of London, to dwell upon 
the. course of recent events, and determine more consideringly what 
portion of his loves and friendships had been lavished in vain. 

But it was no moment for such reveries. The dread of his mo- 
ther’s reappearance was potent over his mind, as over that of a child 
the terror of a midnight apparition. — His thoughts were paralyzed. 
— He could not even feel freely at that moment. — 

Wondering surmises hastily traversed his brain with regard to the 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA. — ABEDNZGO. 


9 


; 


mysterious portrait he had seen that evening, ami the still more 
mysterious emotions betrayed by his mother. Painfully- pleasing 
visions flitted before hi3 eyes of the bright form of Esther — his own 
Esther, — his beloved Esther ! But just as her eyes seemed gazing 
into his, the creaking of the wainscot seemed to indicate from with, 
out the approach of Lady Annesley ; and the light of the fire ap- 
peared a reflection of that which had recently brightened the cham- 
ber, from the taper held in the hand of his mother. 

The night was beginning to be tempestuous. As the moon had 
set, the winds were rising ; — beating menacingly against the crazy 
walls of the old Grange, as if to demand how they had dared so 
long to withstand the attacks of time and tide ; and roaring in the 
vast chimney, as though to inquire the meaning of an unwonted in- 
mate in that room. 

By degrees, the storm rose into fierceness. The shrill whistling of 
the winds became a shriek; and the arrowy pattering of sleet was 
heard sharply against the windows. 

Under this influence, the spirits of Basil became still more and 
more depressed. He was incapable of even the sensations of com- 
fort imparted by a warm fireside, when listening to a storm without. ! 
Pie was an intruder in his mother’s house, — he was an alien from his 
mother’s heart. Lady Annesley had secrets in which she rejected 
his participation, — she had cares for which she disdained his solace. 
— At that moment, Basil felt himself to be most unhappy. 

To sit and gaze upon the glowing embers, however, afforded little 
consolation. It is when perplexed, not when afflicted, that we de- 
light in fire-gazing. At length, the warmth which imparted no plea- 
sure, seemed to inspire energy ; for, suddenly starting up, he recalled 
to mind that the surest way to win his mother’s confidence, was im- 
plicit obedience ; and that, in order “ early to rise,” it was expedient 
to adopt the precept of “ early to bed.” 

Midnight had already struck, previous to this good resolution ; and 
ere his head had been long upon the pillow, the first hour of morn- 
ing was sternly announced by the crazy old clock gracing the stair- 
head adjoining his chamber. It was unlikely, however, that he 
should hear the striking of a second, for he was growing drowsy. 
His cares assumed a less definite pressure ; and the shape of Esther 
hovered less visibly before his closing eyes. Easier in spirit — easy in 
position, lie forgot the causes of maternal oppression and his own 
subservience to a Jew, and fell quietly asleep. 

His dreams, however, soon became unquiet. The expressive coun- 
tenance portrayed by the miniature, (its handsome feature com- 
mingled with those of Abednego Osalez and of his oVv n face,) seemed 
to mock and perplex his slumbers. Again did his stern mother 
harshly reproach him ; and strange voices seemed to mingle in mock- 
ery with her upbraidings. 

He woke : he started from his feverish pillow ! The strange voices 
were easily explained by the fitful moaning of the storm, which now 
appeared to sink into the sobbing of despair, — now to rise into shrieks 
of eldritch laughter. But there were no faces around him to explain 
the visions of his disquiet. He was alone, with scarcely a gleam of 
light emanating from the dying embers on the hearth. 

In another moment, he would have sunk down again upon his 
pillow, and fallen once more asleep, but that his disturbed imagina- 
tion conceived an idea, that the wailing which at first appeared that 
of the storm without, might after all be the expression of human 
suffering, — the plaintive cries of the dying man. His mother might 
be exposed to the dreadful task of watching alone over an agonized 
bed of death ! — 

He rose, and flung on his dressing-gown. Displeased as Lady 
Annesley might be at his presuming to disobey her commands, he 
would not suffer this. He could not forbear ! — He would insist upon 
sharing her vigils. Softly opening the door, he proceeded without a 
light along the corridor, hoping to attain the door of the apartment, 
which he knew to have been appropriated to the poor old man. But, 
as he advanced, he became again persuaded that those mournful 
moanings really proceeded from the gusts of the storm. Nay, as he 
approached nearer the chamber of sickness, these happened to have 
fallen into such momentary stillness, that the beating of his own 
heart seemed almost as audible, as he recognised, in the dead of the 
night, the stern voice of Lady Annesley reciting aloud, the prayers 
for the sick and grievously afflicted, beside the bed of the dying man. 

Retreating in haste to his chamber, as if unworthy to share a task 
so solemn, Basil was soon in bed ; and the momentary chill and 
movement of his exploit seemed to have restored the power of slum- 
ber ; for he now slept heavily, and slept long. — How long he knew 
not : but a pale grey light was stealing into his chamber, when again 
he opened his eyes. 

And this time, he could not deceive himself. A face was bending 
over him, and peering into his. Not the ideal face of Esther how- 
ever. There was no mistaking it for any one of the visages which 
had haunted his dreams : or even for the rosy face of the damsel 
who, Lady Annesley had informed him, was charged to rouse him at 
daybreak. It was an aged face, withered by time and sorrow — even 
that of his mother’s ancient gentlewoman. 

“ Master Basil, I say, — dear Master Basil,” gasped the intruder, 
** I have been calling you these five minutes.”— 


“ Thanks, Dorcas, many thanks. — I fear I have been sleeping 
heavily. — Send me my shaving-water, and I will be up directly. Is 
it late, — or am I yet in time ?” 

“ Hush, sir ; speak softly, I beg of you. My lady has not been 
an hour in bed ; and having forced her to take an anodyne draught 
after the dreadful night she has been passing, so as to ensure her a 
few hours’ rest to meet her further trials, I am grievously afraid of 
having her waked. — Nothing more injurious, Master Basil, than ! 
being disturbed when opiates are taking effect ; and my poor lady is 
in no state to bear|further extremities. She has not slept till now, 
these five nights past ; nor enjoyed undisturbed slumber from the be- 
ginning of the poor old gardener’s illness.” 

“ I will be very careful, Dorcas. It had been already settled be- 
tween us, that she was not to bo disturbed for my departure. I will 
dress immediately, and shall have left the house without her know- 
ing it.” 

“ It is not that , sir. — I do not wish you to go, Master Basil. — I want 
your help, sir ; I am in great trouble, — sore trouble and distress !” — 
faltered the old waiting-woman, drawing her hand across her eyes. 

“ I am inclined to thank God for your being here, sir : — and yet 
I fear my lady will never forgive me for having even mentioned the 
subject to you. — But indeed, and indeed, sir, such scenes are too 
much for her ! It would go against my conscience, — nay, I believe 
it as much as her life is worth — to wake her at this moment. Yet, 
indeed, sir, I cannot manage him alone.” 

“ Are you in need, then, of my assistance for Nicholas, Dorcas ?” ; 

cried young Annesley. “ I will be with you in a moment, ” 

“ But you are not aware, sir ; I must first apprize you, — your kind, 
good heart, Master Basil, would be too much shocked — 

“ My dear Dorcas, it is not the first time I have seen a dying man. 
Even my professional duties sometimes lead me to an hospital.” 

“Ay, ay, sir! But not to a death-bed like this. It is a hard 
thing even for me, who have passed through enough and to spare of 
the sorry sights of this world, to see my poor old fellow-servant in. 

such a condition. — But for your young eyes, Master Basil, ” 

“ Only give me a moment to throw on my clothes, ” 

“ I am not without hope, sir, that, startled by your coming, whom 
he has not seen for months, Nicholas may so far recover his reason 
as to know you ; and then, perhaps, he might compose himself, and 

be quieted without recourse to violent means,” 

“To violent means ?’V-interrupted Basil. “Is the poor fellow, 
then, bereft of his reason ?” 

“ He has had repeated attacks of delirium throughout his illness. ] 
Yesterday morning, the professional gentteman who comes from 
Southampton to visit him, found it necessary to place him under ; 
restraint. Towards evening he became calmer; and my lady insist- 
ed upon releasing him from the strait- waistcoat. Infirm as he is, — j 
feeble, — dying, — she says his violence is merely that of words, and ! 
that he can do no serious injury to himself or others.” 

“ Gracious heaven ! — My mother has been exposed, then, alone, i 
throughout the night, to the violence of a lunatic i” 

“ Nicholas was never known, even in his worst paroxysms, Master j 
Basil, to lift his hand, or even his voice, against my lady. Her 
presence seems to have a soothing power over him, beyond the 
authority or coercion of the physicians.” 

“ But why, Dorcas, did you not tell me all this last night ?” 

“I was sent to bed by my lady, sir, tired and exhausted with 
struggling against him, without so much as an intimation of your 
arrival ; and I am convinced, that, after so anxiously keeping you 
away from the Grange lest you should witness this mournful scene, 
my lady was in hopes you would be off to London without obtaining • 
any suspicion of the matter.” 

“ How strange !” — faltered young Annesley, 

“ My lady loves you too well, Master Basil, to bear your being 
unnecessarily troubled.” 

“ But herself, Dorcas ?” 

“ My lady is used to trouble — ” * 

“ My dear, dear mother !” — • 

“ Show your affection, sir, by lending me your assistance and 
securing her a few hours’ sleep ; she will wake refreshed and com- 
forted. But unless I can prevail upon you to remain, I have not 
courage to undertake him alone, till the Doctor comes.” 

Having persuaded the ancient gentlewoman to facilitate her own 
object by leaving him to dress and rejoin her, Basil hastily and 
anxiously accomplished his toilet. He was soon at the door from 
which he had so timidly retreated in the dead of nigh^. 

On entering the chamber, he perceived Dorcas stationed on one ; 
side of the bed ; and, hidden within the curtains on the other, weeping 
and trembling, the stout servant girl, who had been left in charge of 
the maniac "during her companion’s absence. The grey light of - 
dawn dimly penetrated the scene ; falling chiefly on the white head 
of the venerable sufferer, who was propped with pillows,* and staring 
around him with the ghastly fixedness characteristic of aberration of 
intellect. 

“ Do not be afraid of approaching him, sir : he is quite harmless)!” 
— said Dorcas, with the bluntness of a coarse mind, on seeing her 
young master hesitate beside the door, impressed by the patriarchal 


10 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA. — ABEDNEGO. 


aspect of the old man, whose hoary beard had been many weeks un- 
shorn. — “ Besides, as I said just now, the surprise might do him good.” 

“ My poor Nicholas !” faltered young Annesley, who had by this 
time reached the bed. 

“ Who called me ?” demanded the patient, in a hollow voice. 

“lam sorry to hear you have been so ill, Nicholas,’’ persisted 
Basil, avoiding a direct jeply, with a view to determine his power of 
recognition. 

Instead of answering, the old man fixed his glassy eyes upon the 
person who had thus unexpectedly presented himself; and for some 
moments did not vary the dull stedfastness of his gaze. At length, 
a gradual ray of intelligence seemed to brighten that soulless stare. 

“ I know you now /” — said he, in a low voice. “ I know you, and 
I tell you to begone l — What are you doing here? — Must there be 
more blood upon your hand ?— Has not my lord expressly bidden us 
spurn you from his gate ?— But there needed no bidding of his : I 
would have done it untold ! Even / would not witness the shame 
of my young lady !” 

“ My poor Nicholas, compose yourself!” said Basil, in a soothing 
voice, bending kindly towards him. 

n Your poor Nicholas ?” — shouted the maniac, at the top of his 
broken voice, causing young Annesley to start back. — “ How dare 
you call me your poor ^Nicholas ? — IIovv dare you attempt to 
cajole me ?— Away with you —Away, Jew ! — I know you, I teil you. 
When first your gold persuaded me unsuspectingly to do your bid- 
ding, I thought you a gentleman, — I thought you a man /—And now 
I spit upon you as a false and unbelieving jew ! Away, away, I 
say ; or there is strength enough still in the old man’s gripe to tear 
you limb from limb S” 

“ For God’s sake, Mr. Annesley, sir, get away from him !” sex earn- 
ed the girl, who, in the danger of another, lost sight of her own.— 
“He will be the death of you, sir !”— 

“ He shall not go !— I have him fast ?” cried the maniac, grasping 
the arm of the unresisting young man. 

“ Indeed, Master Basil, it will be safer to leave the room cried 
Dorcas, becoming terrified in her turn. 

“ Basil ? — what Basil ?— ay, ay. another of her tricks ! She 
wants to impose him upon my lord as his grandson ; but she cannot 
deceive me ! I am not yet so old, or so blind, as not to discover 
him through all his disguises ; and from the moment he attempted to 
take the life of my master’s son, I swore his own should not be safe 
if he came hither again.— And now I have Caught you !— As usual 

as usual — as of old — stealing into the house like a thief in the 

dark, when others are asleep,— others suffering and weeping ; ay, 
weeping tears of blood for the sorrows you have caused !-~ My poor 
young lady!’* 

Basil Annesley was now becoming really intimidated ; not by the 
sense of his own danger, but by the dread of obtaining surreptitious 
insight into the secrets of his mother. The word “ Jew,”— the allu- 
sion to blood,— to family sorrow,— to family disgrace,— caused his 
own blood to thrill within his veins. 

« b 8 calm, my poor old friend,” faltered he, in an altered voice, 
without attempting to disengage his arm from the grasp of the luna- 
tic. “ Look at me, Nicholas ! —Recall me to your mind !— Remem- 
ber little Basil — remember Basil Annesley !” — A sort of howl instantly 
burst from the infuriated patient,— a howl terminating in a burst of 
frenetic laughter. 

“Annesley, forsooth!-’ — cried he. “ Poor fool, poor fool !— poor 
cover to shame,— poor blind, blind dupe! — Annesley? — the victim of 
a cunning, paltry Jew ! If your name be Annesley, again I say, 
away with ye! — Go hide yourself in the grave, as your father did 
before you ! He swore he would ! — He said nothing but death could 
efface such dishonor; a violent death — a bloody death. But the 
drops he shed in obtaining it, young man, wrought not half the an- 
guish in the heart they burst from, that the tears of his repentant 
widow have wrung out of the depths of her own. Away with ye, I 
sav again, and hide yourself,— child of the foulest father and guiltiest 
mother that ever called down upon the head of their offspring the 
Judgments of God! * 

Basil Annesley shuddered as he listened. The trembling fingers 
of the delirious sufferer still gripedhis erm. But it was not their fever- 
ish hold which caused his heart to quail. — A heavy hand was upon 
his shoulder ! — His mother stood beside him ! — 

Disturbed from her slumbers by the dreadful cry uttered by her 
distracted charge, Lady Annesley had risen in haste, and hurried, in 
her night-dress, to his chamber.— 

She arrived there just in time to overhear the terrible revelations 
•which had driven every tinge of color from the cheeks of her son. 

CHAPTER VI. 

The humblest hovel of a village acquires temporary* distinction 
from the periodical blossoming of the fine old honeysuckle adorning 
its crumbling walls, and investing the desolate place with beauty and 
fragrance ; and even into the miserable lodging of a gloomy city, 
momentary brightness may be infused by the chance introduction of 
a summer flower, whose rich perfumes brings tidings of a happier 
ivorld elsewhere. 


So was it with the humble abode of Verelst the painter. Nothing 
could b3 more dull, more dreary, more dispiriting than the spot. — 
The house, of which his lodgings occupied the first and second floors, 
was old and disjointed : and though an ancient stone mansion be- 
comes picturesque when falling into ruins, the slight and ill-condi- 
tioned London houses, run up by bricklayers’ contracts, degenerate, 
at the end of a century, into a collection of creaking boards, without 
a’perpendicular line or right angle perceptible in the whole construc- 
tion. Shrunken doors, and ill-fitting windows, admit eddies of air in 
all directions ; while the sallow paint, dingy floors, smoky ceilings, 
and rickety stairs, present a miserable and dispirited combination. 

In Vereist’s lodgings, selected for the advantage of the better light 
reaching the artist’s chamber over the open space of a small bury- 
ing-ground backing on North Audley Street, all was as clean as care 
and friction could make it. But the care applied to the burnishing 
of shabby furniture renders its inferiority only more prominent ; and 
no person accustomed to the resorts of luxury, or even to habits of 
comfort, could have entered Vereist’s apartments on the day they 
were first engaged by the poor painter, without experiencing the 
heavy depression arising from the survey of utter discomfort. 

He had not been established three days, however, before those 
cheerless rooms had assumed the importance acquired by the rough- 
est casket enshrining some precious object. Two beings, more 
graceful of form and featuie than even the imagination of the gifted 
painter could have supplied, were dispensing their charm over the 
place ; and, in addition to the gentle presence ol Esther and Salome, 
the rooms were brightened by a variety of those trivial but striking 
objects which betoken the presence of an artist, — intrinsically value- 
less, so as to be compatible with poverty, — yet indicative of superior 
intelligence and refinement. 

On wooden brackets against the wall were placed two of the finest 
pictures of Verelst ; which not only concealed the faded pap* r, but 
created an atmosphere of grace and poetry, where all before was 
matter of fact. Beside the fire-place, in a recess formed by the abut- 
ting chimney usual in old-fashioned houses, stood a curious carved 
cabinet ; common enough in the quaint old cities of Holland and 
Germany, but acquiring a certain dignity emid the commonplace 
vulgarity of a London lodging-house. On the top of this, lay a 
thick, strangc-looking volume, apparently as antiquated and curious 
as the cabinet itself ; for its clumsy silver clasps were blackened with 
age, and the binding was of the dingy and solemn character peculiar 
to monastic libraries. This precious book was an object of all but 
idolatry to the painter. On removing to that wretched house from 
the abode in Bermondsey in which he had installed himself on his 
first arrival from Germany, Verelst carried it devoutly under his arm ; 
leaving the care of his goods and chatties, and even of his infirm 
wife, to the hands of his daughters. The utmost extremity of pov- 
erty would not have induced him to part with it ; — in the first place, 
because it was a gift, — a token of gratitude from one of hia scholars, 
the young Count of Ehrenstein, who, on quitting the University, 
had despatched it from Ins ancestral castle in the Odenwald to his old 
master ; in the second, because it was a treasure of no less magni- 
tude than the sketch-book of Albert Durer ! 

Great must have been the importance of any individual in the 
eyes of Verelst ere he admitted him to view the contents of that 
sacred volume ; and, during the three years of his residence in Eng- 
land, Basil Annesley alone had beheld those venerable clasps unlock- 
ed in his honor ! 

If the truth must be told, the favor was somewhat thrown away. — 
Those sublimer touches of art which it requires the eye of an artist 
to detect, — those carious insights into the mysteries ©f nature which 
demand initiation on the part of the spectator to whom they are de- 
monstrated, — were as much lost upon the young guardsman, as the 
beauties of a Phidian torso to the eye of a child, who sees only a 
headless trunk, defaced and time-worn, where the virtuoso beholds 
the breathing chef d’ceuvre of the first of sculptors. Basil Annesley, 
however, though too frank for dissimulation on ordinary matters, 
was careful not to wound the pride of the sensitive artist, by exhibit- 
ing his indifference. He had conferred too many favors on Verelst, 
to mortify him by disparaging his only treasure. Even the weak- 
nesses, moreover, of the father of Esther were sacred in his eight ! 

It would have afforded no consolation to the enthusiastic painter, 
to learn that any human being could be blind enough to appreciate 
what he estimated as his own puny efforts of art, far beyond the 
curious jottings and outlines, by which the quaint old master had 
attempted to lay by stores for the aid of future invention, in his 
mysterious repository ; — snatches of the picturesque, — of striking 
effect?, — of graceful combinations, — which displayed, in many in- 
stances to eyes profane, only uncouth blottings, and unmeaning de- 
vices. For nothing could exceed the contempt with which Verelst 
regarded the works to which the exigencies of his position compelled 
him to descend. The wants of his family obliged him to paint down 
to the taste of the most unimaginative nation in Europe ; and the 
two noble works constantly before his eyes, for which he had never 
so much as received an offer, but which, during their composition 
and the two years devoted to their execution, had appeared to con- 
tain the germs of fame and fortune, nay, in his more enthusiastic 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA. — ABEDNEGO. 


II 


moments, to foreshow glimmerings of immortality,— afforded a per- 
petual memepto that subjects taken from the Niebelungen Li<d, even 
if treated with the po wer of Caravaggio and the grace of a Corregio, 
possess not half the charm in English eyes of a sporting scene in 
the Highlands, or some comicality of cockney life. 

The bitter lesson was now learned. But it had required the con- 
temptuous refusal of a dozen picture-dealers, to convince Verelst that 
the higher efforts of modern genius were valueless, unless when 
stamped as saleable by the prefix of a well-known name, accredited 
by the magic letters It. A. ; — whereas for the humorous Croquis and 
sporting studies, such as Colonel Carrington had found so profitable 
a possession, a ready market was at command. 

By the sale of these, the artist maintained his family ; and he 
might have maintained them in opulence, could he have brought 
himself fully and entirely to the level of his position. But the mind 
©f Verelst was pitched to a lofty key. To him it was as much an effort 
to descend to these profitable puerilities, as for other men to attain 
to the higher inspirations of art ; and often, when engaged to com- 
plete for the trade some vulgar series of military groups or hunting 
adventures, he would fling away the pencil with disgust, and snatch- 
ing the palette, in a fit of desperation, paint out some former picture, 
in order to give existence to a dew design, — the faint shadowing of 
some poetical idea, — never, alas ! to bo fully developed. For there 
were no Roman princes, no luxurious cardinals, to give food to the 
family of the necessitous artist while abandoning himself to the 
nobler promptings of his genius. When mildly remonstrated with 
by his feeble wife, he replied by citing the victory he had already at- 
tained over 'himself, by producing for lucre’s sake works revolting to 
hi 3 taste. Bat it was like converting a lance of polished steel into 
a homely instrument of husbandry, to abstract the soul of Verelst 
from the higher walks of his art. 

It is true, that .in his two girls he had unconscious flatterers, 
strongly inc ting him to the cultivation of his nobler aspirations. 
Whenever, in irresistible moments of fervor, the poor artist gave the 
reins to his imagination, so as to produce anew some wild but ex- 
quisite design illustrative of the poetry of his native country, Salome 
and Esther, by their fond enthusiasm, not only stimulated his exer- 
tions, but almost repaid them. Nevertheless, their murmured ap- 
plauses, their glistening eyes, their flushing cheeks, — grateful as was 
the tribute to his heart, not mily as a token of affection, but as indi- 
cative of the possession of genius sympathetic with his own— did 
not suffice to satisfy his weekly creditors, or defray the rent of even 
his inconsiderable lodging. The poor paralytic mother, whose sick- 
ness \£as the real'source of their poverty, often entreated the two 
girls to be more sparing in their admiration. With the wisdom of ex- 
perience, the infirm wife of Verelst recognised the futility of strug- 
gling against destiny. She knew, that to achieve the laurels of glory 
requires more than the mere possession of genius ; that there must be 
favorable coincidences of time and place, and, above all, of national 
lastes and prosperity, to create a field for the triumph of art, and the 
renown of the artist. 

Mrs. Verelst was a woman of no common order. Born of an 
opulent family, she had eloped in early girlhood* from her father’s 
house with the enthusiastic artist; and ill-prepared by habits or edu- 
cation for the life of privation she had embraced, her health had 
fallen a sacrifice, and increased the evil. From the period of her 
younger daughter’s birth, in consequence of premature exertion, she 
had become crippled; a burthen upon the family, save for the pains 
she was enabled to bestow upon the education of the girls. Though 
enfeebled by infirmity, she was unwearied in imparting to her daugh- 
ters the accomplishments in which she excelled ; and even now, 
though confined at all times to au easy chair, and often to her bed, 
her industrious hands were constantly exercised for the benefit of the 
amily. 

Sore had been the trial to this patient invalid to uproot herself from 
the humble but cheerful home at Heidelberg to which She had been 
so long habituated; and exchange the view from her windows over 
the rippling waters of the Neekar, and the crowning heights cf the 
green forests beyond, for the foggy, smoky, cheerless limitation of a 
narrow London street. Though of British extraction, she had never 
abided in England ; and became as quickly conscious as any foreign 
visiter, of the oppressive cost of ordinary enjoyment in a city which 
supplies no gratuitous pleasures. If, however, either the mother or 
daughters joined after the purer atmosphere and franker sociability cf 
Heidelberg, they were cautious not to afflict by their lamentations the 
inconsiderate man by whose want of caution they had been driven 
into exile. 

The artist enjoyed in his family an impunity something between a 
reverence accorded to a prophet, and the indulgence conceded to an 
ailing child. His whims were studied, his foibles respected. What- 
ever evils befell them, it was the common care that they should fall 
lightest on the father. Among themselves, the disinterestedness of 
mind and exaltation of character which had reduced them to ruin, 
commanded a degree of respect that did them honor; and the two 
girls seemed to feel that they could not better testify their affection 
for their suffering mother, than duty towards the improvident father 
she so dearly loved. 


“ How lonesome we have been, these four days past 1” observed 
Verelst, as he stood retouching a picture upon the easel, the contem- 
plation of which he had a thousand times forsworn. — “ Not a single 
visiter the whole of this week !” 

The two girls, who sat working at the same embroidering- frame, 
waiting till their mother, who was reclining yji her arm-chair, should 
feel disposed to resume the book she had been reading aloud to them 
the greater part of the morning, looked at each other and smiled,— 
or rather mutually refrained from a smile. For the only guests who 
ever crossed their threshold were Basil Annesley, and three or four 
printsqjlers and picture-dealers, by whom Verelst was occasionally 
employed. 

“ I want cheering up, for the continuation of my military group* 
ing !” resumed the artist. “ I have been obliged to take up the brush ; 
instead of the pencil to-day, for want of some one to advise me re- 
specting that charge of Polish lancers/* 

“He is out of town, father. He is gone into Hampshire,” said 
Esther, vaguely enough, if in reply to her father’s observation. 

“ Besides, 3 ’ added the feeble voice of Mrs. Verelst, who, though 
sitting with her eyes closed, was not dozing, as they had supposed, 

“ even if he were in town, Mr. Annesley has sense enough to know 
that it is not expedient for him to be a daily visiter in a house like 
ours,— that it must be injurious to him, and fatal to us. }1 

“ Why so ?” inquired the painter, without raising his eye3 from his i 
work. “ He used to come to us every day, at Heidelberg ?” 

“ He was your pupil,— he was eagerly studying the German lan- 
guage, and society was an object to him.” 

“ Not more an object to him there, than his society here to me.” ' 

“ Besides, Mr. Annesley was then fifteen, and Esther and Salome 
children of eleven and twelve. 0 

“ And is there not precisely the same difference of age between : 
them now ?” 

“ Certainly ! But there is a very great differerxee in the construc- 
tion others might place upon their intimacy !” 

“ Their intimacy? — My dear wife, you are dreaming! 5 * cried the 
painter, almost smiling at her simplicity, and not iu the least suspect- 
ing his own. “ Their intimacy ? — Surely you do not suppose that this 
excellent young man, who, though i never was able to endue him 
with much artistic perception, made good progress under my hands, 
(as his aquarelle yonder of the old Castle of Heidelberg, pasted into , 
the lid of Esther’s workbox, can testify,) this promising scholar of ! 
mine, I say, who has been of such essential service to us during our 
sojourn in this inhospitible country, cannot come and visit his old 
master, and advise him in his compositions so as to adapt them to 
the vulgar appetites of his customers, without provoking remarks by 
his condescension ?— At all events, what have my daughters to do 
with it ? — It is not Salome’s pencils he sits pointing. It not Esther’s 
drawings, of which he suggests the subject.” 

“ Mr. Annesley has gone down to visit his invalid mother, papa,” 
interposed Esther, apprehensively, perhaps, that her father might 
take cognizance of her tingling cheeks, or his wife consider it ne- 
cessary to inspire hint with a mpre worldly view of their relative posi- 
tion. 

“ Has her a mother ?” inquired the artist, — who took little heed of ' 
the ordinary business of life. “ I always fancied from his indepen- 
dence that he was an orphan, and his own matter.” 

“ Do you not remember our first interest in him at Heidelberg ori- 
ginating in the letters he showed us from Lady Annesley ?” 

“ True, — I remember 1 — Grave, cordial, heart-stirring letters. — 
But as hejiever mentioned her here, I thought she might have died 
in the interim. And so she is an invalid ? and the reason, perhaps, 
Rachael, why he interests himself so kindly in your illness, — and is ; 
always suggesting some comfort or relief for you. — It is such a kind- 
hearted creature ! — I mis3 him, after a few days’ absence, as I should 
miss one of you , were you to go away from me.” 

“ Mr. Annesley is very kind, — very affable, — very condescend- < 
ing,” said Mrs. Verelst, coldly, as if to give a discouraging view to 
their terms of friendship. 

“ But surely we arp of as much service to him, mother, as he is to i 
papa in the composition and sale of his drawings ?” — observed Sa- 
lome. “ Mr. Annesley has a charming voice ; but it is Esther’s in- 
structions which have enabled him to do it justice.” 

“So long as he comes as a pupil,” persisted Mrs. Verelst, “ he 
comes on appropriate terms. But highly born as he is, and as I pre- 
sume, ^of good hereditary fortune, there can be no equality, and, con- j 
sequently, no real friendship between him and us. We are people ( 
earning our subsistence by our exertions. He is a gentleman, — a : 
fine gentleman.” 

“ He is a man P cried Verelst, suddenly throwing down his brush, 
and assuming a tone of energy very unusual to him. — “ He is my 
benefactor, too : — but I should hate myself, and despise him, if I 
thought that any obstacle to his being my friend.” 

His wife remained silent ; aware of the hazard of introducing sus- 
picion into that simplest of human hearts. A woman’s tact fore- 
warned her that, if made to feel the danger and delicacy of their 
position as regarded Basil Annesley, he would feel it so acutely as to 
render all further intimacy between them impossible. 


32 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA. — ABEDNEGO. 


Before Verelst had resumed his brush or the girls recovered their 
apprehensions that some unpleasant explanation was about to ensue, 
a knock was heard at the street door, and a step on the stairs ; and 
every one in the room uttered an exclamation of delight to welcome 
the arrival of-— Basil Annesley ! 

♦CHAPTER VII. 

“ My good Mr. Annesley — my dear young friend !” exclaimed the 
painter, “ these girls told me just now, you had been in the country 
nursing a sick relative. Are you quite sure yon have not taken her 
disorder? I never saw you look so ill, since the time of your fever 
at Heidelberg, when we had you into our house for change of air !*’ 

“ You remind me of one of the happiest epochs of my life !” cried 
Basil, suddenly acquiring all the bloom of which Verelst was quite 
justified in accusing him of being deficient. 

“Ay — now you look somewhat more like yourself again !” cried 
the painter. “ Now you are a fitter object for the artist’s studio ! — 
You cannot imagine, my dear sir, how I have wanted you! — The 
•sketches cannot get on without you. If you had remained long in 
'the country I should have been ruined ! — I wanted spirits to proceed 
to business during your absence ; but since you are here again, I will 
push back the King of Tnule in disgrace into his corner. — Salome, 
bring forward the drawing- tabic !” 

And while the young man was bending over the chair of the inva- 
lid, inquiring anxiously into the events of the four or five last days, 
without heeding the garrulity of his old master, the change was ac- 
complished. On Basil’s release from his almost filial attentions to 
'the worn and wasted, yet still beautiful invalid, all was in readiness 
to be set in movement, by his advice touching the helmets of Prus- 
sian lancers, and the bouts of Hungarian pandours. 

Taking the chair placed for him by Salome close beside the artist, 
he proceeded, with patient good-humour, to play the critic on the 
spirited military groups, in which it was indeed difficult to point out 
a fault, save ifftrifiing accessories of costume. So animated were the 
charges, so admirable the equestrian combinations, that Basil, instead 
of enlarging on a few errors of equipment, fell, as usual, into rhapso- 
dies at the spirit and originality of the whole. 

It was probably the stimulus of this very enthusiasm which had 
been wanting to Verelst ; for in a moment his chalks were in full ac- 
tivity, and Basil at leisure to perceive that the seat provided for him 
by Salome commanded a view of the embroidery frame over which 
the grapeful heads of the two girls were stooping together. It was 
only natural that he should thenceforward divide hisattention between 
the withered hand, under which was growing into life a rude bridge 
over a mountain torrent, hotly defended by a legion of Tyrolese pea- 
sants, armed with the picturesque wildness of irregular warfare, 
hgainst a trimly detachment of French light infantry, in all the stu- 
died equipment of military array, — and the fairy fingers of the sisters, 
as they flew over their work. Though the hands of the two girls 
were closely imtertwined as they sat together, so that the slight form 
©f the one almost effaced the still sleuderer figure of the other, the 
leyes of Basil had no difficulty in detecting the hand so dear to him, — 
the hand which had trembled on his sudden entrance, — and which 
now, in the joy of his presence again in that chamber, was performing 
thrice the work effected by the less-interested Salome ; who was suf- 
ficiently at her ease to contemplate, every now and then, at idle lei- 
sure, the venerable figure of her father, contrasted with that of the 
handsome young visiter bending over him while watching the efforts 
Df his pencil. Placed as Salome was, she was, of course, enabled to 
see that, ever and anon, his eyes wandered furtively lowards Esther ; 
from the detection of whoso downcast looks he knew himself to be 
Secure. 

“ Do you happen to know anything, Mr. Annesley, of a family 
named Maitland ?” suddenly inquired Mrs. Verelst, after exercising, 
perhaps, the same unnoticed scrutiny as Salome. 

Annesley started, and looked confused. 

l< They live in Arlington Street,” added Esther, in a low voice, 
taking this opportunity to lift her eyes to his face, and surprised, in 
tier turn, to find it covered with conscious blushes. 

“ The son is a brother-officer of mine,’ , replied he, gradually recov- 
ering his self-possession. 

“ It is , then, as we have supposed, to you that Esther is indebted 
for her introduction to the family !” observed Mrs. Verelst. 

; “Introduction ?” jepeated Basil, in evident surprise. 

“ I* received an hour age, a note, signed Lucy Maitland, begging 
to know my terms of tuition, and requesting me to be in Arlington 
Street at three o’clock to-morrow,” said Esther, in explanation. 

The former confusion of countenance of Basil Annesley was now 
pi thousand times augmented. The idea of Esther Verelst — Ms Es- 
ther — a singing mistress to those flighty girls, the Misses Maitland, 
—-in that showy, heartless house, — subjected to the gaze of the 
“ string of puppies” frequenting it, — exposed to the silly impertinence 
of Lady Maitland, — condemned to all the ignominy inflicted on a 
teacher, by people of empty heads and callous hearts ! 

“ And has Miss Verelst engaged herself?” said he, addressing the 
pother. 

“ She merely wrote accepting the appointment tor to-morrow, 


when there will probably be little difficulty in adjusting the question 
of terms and hours,” replied the invalid. 

“You do me too much honor in supposing that the recommenda- 
tion came from we,” said Annesley, after a pause, in which he had 
been balancing the evils likely to arise to the beautiful Esther Ve- 
relst from such a connexion, against the advantage to the necessitous 
family of an additional guinea a- week earned by their exertions. “ I 
should scarcely have suggested a place likely to expose a person so 
timid as Est — as Miss Verelst, to the constant notice and molesta- 
tion of precisely the order of people whose familiarity drove her from 
the rehearsals at the opera. The advantage to be derived would be 
dearly purchased by exposure to the habits of a house, of all others 
of my acquaintance the one into which I should be least dispqsed to 
introduce a sister of my own.’’ 

Esther was satisfied. The pang excited in her bosom by Basil’s 
confusion at the first mention of the name of Maitland, was gradually 
subsiding, 

“ Surely,” observed Salome, little suspecting the new v^ation to 
which she was about to give rise, “ Maitland was the name of the 
ladies with whom we saw you one night at the opera ?” 

“ I scarcely recollect,” stammered Basil, with some embarrass, 
ment. 

“ Oh ! yes — we met you on the stairs with a beautiful fair girl on 
your arm — whom you hurried into a -carriage, and returned to assist 
us. I remember hearing it announced as that of Lady Maitland.” 

“ How can you recollect such trash, child !” interrupted Verelst. 
“ Annesley ! what think you of placing the stout fellow with the 
scythe, wlio is striking down the standard of France, on the broken 
parapet of the bridge ?” 

“ Admirable !” cried Basil, glad to direct his eyes towards the 
drawing at which he had been hitherto only pretending to look. “ It 
will make a modern edition of the famous battle of the Standard. 
But what a pity, sir, to throw away this exquisite design on a series 
for which you are so miserably paid ? Why not place it in the gorge 
of a mountain pass, and execute it in oils ?” 

“ Ay, why not ?” cried the artist, recalling at that moment his order 
to mind for the two battle-pieces, and justly surmising that Mr. Stubbs 
had neither art nor learning enough to detect the anachronism, if 
such a study were made the companion to a skirmish of the condoi- 
tieri of Sir John Hawkwood and the Cardinal de Bourbon ; and lit- 
tle suspecting the anxiety of mind with which this interruption of 
their conversation was causing to his favourite daughter. 

“Esther has been setting to music, sinee you have been gone, 
those ”pretty words you brought her the last time you were here,” 
observed Mrs. Verelst, after her husband and his guest had suffi- 
ciently debated together the question of the new Battle of the Stan- 
dard, which was to rival that of Leonardo. 

“ I thought she would like them !” cried Basil, again raising his 
eyes, and meeting those of Esther with a degree of frankness that 
almost satisfied her he was not actuated by fear of exposing his own 
flirtations to her examination, in opposing her entrance into the 
Maitland family. 

“ And a fine melancholy ditty she has made of them,” added her 
father. 

“They were appropriate only to a minor key,’* observed Esther, 
in an apologetic tone. 

“ Will you not let me hear the ballad, and judge for myself ?” in- 
quired Basil. 

“ I am so afraid of not satisfying your expectation !” said Esther, 
rising, however, instantly from her work. “ I am sure they are fa- 
vourite verses of yours, or you would not have been at the trouble of 
copying them.’’ 

“ Show me the man who would like his favourite verses the less 
from hearing them sung by such a voice as yours, Esther !” said her 
father fondly. And it was, perhaps, the dread of further enconiums 
which hastened the blushing girl in her preparations for complying 
with Mr. Annesley’s request, by throwing open the door of her 
mother’s room, in which (in submission to the requirements of the 
artist’s studio) stood the piano. 

Sweet as it was expressive was the ritournelle that prefaced Esther 
Verelst’s articulate and melodious recital of the following stanzas ; — 

BALLAD. 

Yes ! other eyes may brighten, love< 

When gazing upon thine, 

As gloomiest brooks runs glittering where 
The shedding sunbeams shine. 

Oh ! did I love thee less, be sure, 

Mine own would brighter be ; 

Content thee, then, with smiles from them, 

And bear with tears from me ! 

Yes! other tones may soften, love, 

When to thine ear addrest, 

As breezes lulled the barque allure 
O’er ocean’s treacherous breast. 

Ob ! did I love thee less, be sure, 

My words would smoother be ; 

Content thee, then, with praise from them. 

And bear with truth from me ! 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA. — ABEDNEGO. 


13 


Yes! other arms may bear thee, love, 

O’er fortune’s flowery way ; 

Mine, with unwearied fervent faith, 

Abide the darker day. 

Oh ! did T love thee less, be sure, 

My aid would prompter be ! 

Content thee, then, with pleasing them, 

And keep thy love for me ! 

To the utter mortification of poor Esther, not a word of commen- 
dation broke from Annesley at the conclusion of her performance. 
Her father exclaimed — “ Brava, my girl ! charming, charming !’ 5 — 
but the voice of Annesley was mute. The piano commanded no 
view of the room in which her auditors were seated; and she had 
consequently no means of surmising that if her ungracious friend 
uttered no common phrase of compliment, it was because his feelings 
were far too deeply excited for words. Salome, who had watched 
his tearful eyes during the exquisite song of her sister, was satisfied. 

“ After all, this is a doleful ditty to salute a friend with on his re- 
turn,” observed the artist, also noticing the silence of Basil, and with 
a glance detecting the cause, which he justly attributed to the sen- 
sitiveness produced by a previous shock on his spirits. “You for- 
get, my Esther, that Mr. Annesley is come to us from the sick-room 
of one he loves, and that he wants cheering.” 

“ I am always cheered when I find myself so kindly welcomed to 
this fireside,” said Basil, attempting to rally his spirits ; “ in the first 
place, by your cordiality ; in the second, by the sight of your ration- 
al occupations. The do-nothing, good-for-nothing world I live in, 
contains few sights so pleasant.” 

“ I fancied,” said Salome, “ that the ladies of England were highly 
enlightened and accomplished ?” 

“ Superficially accomplished. They learn as much music and 
drawing and as many languages, as can be taught for money ; but no- 
thing is done to cultivate that intellectual sense which renders such 
acquirements available.” 

“ And these Miss Maitlands, Esther’s pupils ?” demanded Salome, 
returning to the charge. 

“Your sister has decided, then, on accepting their tuition?” de- 
manded Basil, in a constrained tone, as Esther, after closing her in- 
strument, returned into the sitting-room. 

“ I scarcely know what pretext I could find for refusing,” she ob- 
served, m a timid voice, resuming her former place. 

“Would you favor me with a sight of Miss Maitland’s letter?’ 5 
inquired Annesley. 

“The letter! — Willingly !’ 5 — said Mrs. Verelst, producing it from 
a paper- rack on the table beside her chair. 

“ This is the handwriting of the brother, who is in the same regi- 
ment with myself,” observed Basil, after examining the letter, having 
from the first surmised the possibility of a hoax on the part of his 
brother officers. “ If you permit me, I will make inquiries of Lady 
Maitland concerning her intentions; and bring you an exact ac- 
count, before you give yourself the trouble and annoyance of a long 
walk this cold weather, for the sole purpose, perhaps, of gratifying 
unjustifiable curiosity.’ 5 

“ But what curiosity can poor Esther have excited among persons 
to whom she is known only by name?’ 5 inquired Mrs. Verelst, mis- 
trustfully. 

“ Pardon me, — she is personally known to Lady Maitland’s son, 
who has probably mentioned her to his sisters. Surely,” said he, 
turning suddenly round to Esther for confirmation, “you remember 
the tall, fair, young man, so frequently with old Colonel Carrington, 
who accosted us at the stage-door on the day you made that hasty 
exit from rehearsal ?’ 5 

“ Perfectly !” replied Esther, now fully enlightened as to the origin 
of his objection, “ and I am consequently certain that it would be 
disagreeable to me to give lessons to Lady Maitland’s daughters.” 

“ Still, before you give a decided negative, which will, of course, 
be ungraciously' construed, allow me to institute some inquiry into 
the object of the parties,” resumed Basil. “ I see these people 
daily. I will even make a point of going there to-night. Nothing 
will be easier than for me to discover, without compromising you , 
whether the young ladies have any serious intention of improving 
themselves under your hands, and requiting your trouble. The girls 
are good-natured, though silly and trifling ; and would not, I should 
imagine, lend themselves to unladylike mystification. 

Esther assented to this arrangement. 

“ As we shall meet again soon, I will shorten my visit now,” con- 
tinued Basil, rising from his seat, “ but I must not go without accom- 
plishing its real object- I have brought you a curiosity to look at, 
sir,” resumed he, addressing Verelst, after drawing a small volume 
from his pocket. “ Something in your own way — a little book which 
I borrowed from my mother.” 

“ It was a scarce volume of Hollar’s Engravings, after Holbein’s 
Dance of Death, which was examined by Verelst with deliberation 
and enthusiasm. 

“ I know these designs,” said he, “far better than I know any of 
my own ! I spent a month at Basle, for the express purpose of stu- 
dying the characteristics of that quaint old master. This is a curious 
copy, and seems enriched with original interleavings,” he observed, 


scrutinizing the volume with the eye of a connoisseur. “But what 
have we here ? — there is an Arabic inscription on the title-page — or 
Sanscrit — or, stay ! — you Rachael, can help us here. Are not these 
Hebrew characters ?” 

Basil Annesley took the open volume from the hands of Verelst, to 
convey it to his wife. On his way, he naturally glanced at the in- 
scription, which was decidedly Hebrew, and written in ink almost in- 
visible from age. But at the foot, in a modern handwriting, to his 
utter amazement, were inscribed the memorable initials of — A. O. ! 

Before he had recovered from the shock caused by this startling, 
though of course accidental coincidence, the whole attention of Basil 
.was absorbed by the effect produced on Mrs. Verelst by the sight of 
the volume ! Pale as death, with quivering lips, and suspended 
respiration, she sank back in her chair the moment the inscription 
was placed before her. Esther and Salome, whose attention was ; 
constantly directed towards the invalid, were by her side in a mo- 
ment. 

“ Place a screen before the fire — I was afraid the room was toQ 
close for her !’ 5 faltered Esther, opening a large green fan which lay 
constantly on her mother’s table. 

“ The ether, father ! — you will find it cn the dressing-table within,* 
cried Salome ; nor had either of them leisure to notice that it was by 
Basil, by whom, as by a devoted son, the commission was executed. 
The eyes of Mrs. Verelst, however, even after the application of the 
ether to her temples, remained closed, and her hands cold as marble. 

The book, a glance at which, young Annesley could not forbear 
regarding as the origin of her sudden seziure, had now fallen on the 
floor. The dispiriting mature of the frontispiece (which represented 
the grisly skeleton of Death beguiling an old man into the grave by 
the music of a dulcimer) had probably conveyed an insupportable 
shock to the sensitive mind of the enfeebled invalid. 

Some minutes elapsed before Mrs. Verelst evinced the smallest 
token of consciousness ; — a longer period than Basil, who had often 
seen her overcome by faintness, had ever known her remain tho- 
roughly insensible to what was passing around her. At length she; 
slowly unclosed her eyes, and a faint murmer broke from her lips. 
Esther instantly bent down her head to listen ; but Annesley, with- 
out any such effort, distinctly heard her exclaim — “ My father — who 
was it spoke to me of my father ?” — 

“ Better wheel her into her own room,” interposed the artist, who, 
during the swoon of his wife, had stoc d aloof, distressed and help, 
less. “ It is nothing — the heat of the fire — the sulphur of those deJ 
testable coals ! — Let us all be quiet, and she will be herself again in 
a moment.” 

The artist then assisted his daughters to remove the invalid into 
an adjoining chamber, and young Annesley was left alone to hia 
meditations. Their absence was so protracted, however, that Basil 
became alarmed, and just as he had made up*his mind to ring the 
bell to gain further information relative to the condition of Mrs. Ve- 
relst, the old man made his appearance. 

“ A word with you, my dear Mr. Annesley, 5 ’ said he, suddenly, 
“ where did you say that you had found that edition of Hollar ?’ 5 

“ I did not find it, 5 ’ replied Basil, “ it is my own. -For the credit 
of our taste, I am proud to say that the book is a family possession.** 

“ Most strange !” murmured the old man. 

“ Why strange?” inquired Basil. “There is nothing, I believe, 
very rare in the volume. I hardly ever saw a considerable book-said 
that did not contain a copy.” 

“ Perhaps so ; but not that copy.” 

“ Of course not. It has been in our family library these hundred 
years.” 

“ You use the term hundred in a figurative sense,” added Verelst. 

“ As my own age does not amount to a quarter of the period, I 
can scarcely give my personal attestation,” observed Basil, with a 
smile. “But such of my mother’s books as did not belong to my 
father’s bachelor library, were probably derived from that of het 
father, the late Lord L .” 

“ Lord L ?” exclaimed the painter, again seizing the sleeve of 

Annesley. “ You do not mean to say that you are the grandson of 
that man ?” 

“ Perhaps you knew him,” said Basil, evasively. “ He was more 
than once, I fancy, employed in missions at the courts of Germany I 5 * 

Verelst w T as silent, — absorbed in reflection. 

“Were you acquainted with my grandfather ?” again demanded 
Basil, resolved to obtain an answer. 

“ I never saw him. Lord L was ambassador at Vienna at the 

breaking out of the French Revolution. I was then a child.” 

“ May I ask, in my turn,” inquired Basil, “what particular in- 
terest you attach to the copy of Hollar?” 

“ Five minutes ago I would have answered you without hesita- 
tion,’ 5 replied Verelst, in a voice tremulous from agitation. “ Now, 
I must reflect. Inscrutable are the ways of Providence!” faltered 
the artist, after a few minutes 5 pause. “ That ever I should be in- 
debted for what is dearer to me than my life,— the welfare of my 
family, — to the grandson of— * — But no matter !” said he, checking 
' his ejaculation. And Basil was too much struck by the profound 
emotion of the gray-haired artist, to persist in his inquiries. Hd 


14 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA. — ABEDNEGO. 


therefore abruptly took his leave, without waiting for the reappear- 
ance of the girls. 

It was dusk when Basil emerged from the house ; and a desolate 
winter rain was falling in torrents, splashing into the overflowing 
kennels, and almost obscuring the light of the lamps. As the young 
guardsman reached the junction of the small strefet in which Yerelst’s 
house was situated, with South Audley street, in attempting to muf- 
fle himself in his cloak in resistance to the driving rain, he encoun- 
tered what, at the first shock, he conceived to be the lamp- post ! But 
on recoiling, he found that, in addition to the lamp post, he had 
struck against an individual combating the gusts of wind with a dis- 
abled umbrella. Something irresistibly ludicrous in the dilemma of 
his brother in distress, attracted his attention to the struggling way- 
farer ; when lo ! by the light of the lamp, he recognised the marked 
and well-remembered features of Abcdncgo the Money-lender ! — 

The encounter was untimely ; but Basil would not shrink from 
recognising the man by whom he had been so greatly obliged. 

“ We have untoward weather for our walk,” said Annesley, lend- 
ing his assistance to reverse the obstinate resistance of the reeking 
cotton umbrella. 

44 Unpleasant enough ; and you , who walk for pleasure, might, I 
should think, spare your pains for a happier moment,” rejoined the 
harsh voice of Abednego. 44 With me the case is different.” 

44 Different indeed ! since you have the means of commanding any 
sort of equipage you please : while I have at my disposal only that 
enjoyed by our father Adam.” 

“ And how long should I enjoy the means, pray, — were I to lavish 
them on costly equipages?’ 3 rejoined the Money-lender. “Not a 
year ! — not a month, perhaps, were I tempted into such ridiculous 
prodigality. I might be reduced to the same beggarly shifts which 
bring so many fine gentlemen shuffling, nay, all but begging to my 
door ! For whether people beg for a loan or beg for a gift, whero 
lies the mighty difference ? They are still beggars. Are you bound 
for St. James’s, young sir ? If so, we may become a mutual benefit. 
Your arm is strong enough to hold up the umbrella ; and by taking 
mine, we may share it between us. Don’t be afraid ! — In such 
weather as this, none of your fine friends will bo astir. No one will 
recognize the gallant Mr. Basil Annesley cheek-byjowl with A O. !” 

44 It is no such consideration — ” Basil was beginning. 

44 Away with ye then, and make an end of the discussion,” inter- 
rupted Abednego, practically enforcing his advice. 44 Satisfy your 
scruples by the certainty that you have a setond time rendered ser- 
vice to a man who is more than ready to render service to you.’ 3 

Partly carried away by his companion’s impetuosity, and partly 
curious of further insight into his eccentric character, Basil suffered 
himself to be disposed of. In another minute, he found himself sole 
occupant of the wet flagstones with the mysterious Abednego. 

44 But surely, sir,^at your age,” said he, by way of renewing the 
conversation, “the enjoyment of personal comfort must be a greater 
object than the amassment of mere wealth V* — 

44 Who is to determine a man’s notions of personal comfort ?’’ cried 
the Money-lender. 44 And what do yo.u mean by mere wealth ? My 
notion nf personal comfort is independence of hirelings — whether 
man or beast; and as to wealth, what is there in this world beyond 
it ? — What else controls the march of empires — the progress of civili- 
zation — the development of science — the cultivation of art ? What 
hut money causes the crucible to glow, — sinks the shaft, — launches 
the balloon into the sky — or plunges the diving-bell into the depths 
of the ocean ’ Of what metal is composed the key of the poet’s ima- 
gination — the orator’s eloquence — the physician’s skill — the divine’s 
zeal and fervor? — Of gold, sir — of current gold ! — He who hath that , 
commands kings on their thrones, or philosophers in their cabinets ! 
Talk not to me of the refinements of art. If i want to enjoy them, J 
buy up both art and artists — an orchestra of musicians — a legion of 
sculptors or painters ! Your capitalist," boy — your capitalist is the 
only solid sovereign of modern times ! — ‘ Mere wealth ?’ quotha. I 
knew that you were a boy, Basil Annesley, but I held you not for a 
child 1”— ' 

The young man could scarcely resist a smile at the impetuosity of 
his companion. 

44 1 perfectly agree with you sir,” said he at last. 44 But it was by 
fully estimating the value of money as a means of commanding en- 
joyment, that I expressed my surprise at your preferring a wet walk 
; to a luxurious carriage.” 

4 ‘ Does the sportsman find the greater pleasure in the flavor of his 
game, or the pursuit of the chase ?” demanded Abednego, in a 
sterner voice. 44 Have you not strength of mind to figure to your- 
self the intensity of enjoyment which a man, appreciating the true 
value of money, may find in the combinations by which he adds 
thousands to thousands, — ingot lo ingot ?— Even as the artist whose 
family you have just quitted” .(Basil found it impossible to repress a 
start!) 44 finds ©xquisite delight in the progress of a picture by whose 
perfectionment he hopes to attain profit and fame, docs the Money- 
monger glory in the machinery by which his enrichment is accom- 
plished. Even economy— even privation — has charms, when tend- 
ing towards the achievement of the grand object of his life ! Ay, 
in —abject as it may seem to you, the Money-lender’s is a glo- 


rious calling ! — Every minute of my life swells the amount «f my 
possessions. Other men’s property diminishes with their span of 
life ; — mine, like the evening shadows, grows as -the sun goes down. 
I am a wretch, eh ? — a shabby threadbare wretch, with whom a 
smart officer like you is ashamed to be seen arm in arm ! Shabby 
and threadbare as I seem, I tell you I hold in subjection those of 
whose acquaintance you are proud — those to whose acquaintance 
you barely aspire ; Your fine ladies conic and beg of me, — cajole 
me — flatter me! — cajole and flatter A. O. in his cobweb- tapestried 
halls of State. — ‘Mere wealth!’ — What, but the wealth I have 
amassed by trudging in the rain while others swelter in carriages, 
brings the Duke of Rochester cringing to my feet, lying and swind- 
ling for the means of keeping up his empty state ! His covelingsof 
A. O.’s 4 mere wealth’ have converted that man, created by nature 
for honor and refinement, into an equivocating pettifogger. Ay, sir, 
you are shocked — you consider my tongue coarse and licentious ! — 
You would plead privilege of peerage against the Money-lender, in 
favor of the uncle of your fribble acquaintance, young Wilberton.” 
(Again Basil started.) 44 But when you have lived longer, you will 
come to the same conclusions. And now, good evening to you, Mr. 
Basil Annesley ! for here we are, opposite to the Gloucester Coffee 
House, within hail of your out-at-elbows, discreditable friends, the 
Maitlands ! — Good evening ! — I should be as loth as yourself to ex- 
pose you to the shame of being met skulking in the rain under the 
same ignominious umbrella with such a Barabbas as A. O. !” 


CHAPTER VIII. 

The party assembled at the Maitlands, in Arlington street, when 
Basil arrived, was about as usual, in point of numbers ; and their 
conversation consisted of course in scandal, and their mirth in irony. 
The chief source of their gaiety lay at all times in quizzing old Car- 
rington, or some other butt ; and as the Dowager-colonel did not 
happen to be present when Basil entered, they were only too happy 
to attack him with raileries more agreeable to them than to himself. 

44 How dolorous he looks to-night !’’ cried John Maitland, extend- 
ing a finger to the new comer, but without rising from the sofa on 
which he was lolling beside a handsome bold-eyed woman of a cer- 
tain age. 44 1 am afraid, Nancy, (a nickname given to Annesley 
among the subs, from his beardless aspect on joining the regiment,) 
l am sadly afraid you have taken cold !” 

44 On the contrary, it is nearly a degree warmer at Barlingham 
than in London,” replied Basil, referring this abrupt conjecture to his 
country excursion. 

A vociferous laugh was the sole answer to this explanation, 

41 None of your put offs, my fine fellow !” cried John Maitland. 
44 Here ! — Blencowe, — Blencowe ! — 1 tell Annesley that I am afraid 
he has caught cold in the rain this evening, and he tries to hum me 
by talking about his mother’s thermometer !” 

Captain Blencowe thus apostrophized, stationed himself on the 
scroll of the chaise langue, in an attitude little more ceremonious 
than that of his friend. 

44 1 could scarcely suppose my movements of sufficient conse- 
quence,” said Basil, somewhat nettled, 44 to make you aware that, a 
few hours after my arrival in town, I had enjoyed a wet walk.” 

14 And in such company !” retorted Maitland — 44 arm in arm with 
an old beggarman under a cotton umbrella, which you left at the 
next corner!” 

44 Reste a savoir ,” cried the lady with the bold bright eyes, 44 which 
of the two was affording hospitality to the other !” 

44 If you have any interest in inquiring,” said Basil, aware that to 
defeat a jester is best achieved by meeting him half-way, 41 the cot- 
ton umbrella was the property of my companion ; and an enviable 
property I thought it, in that pelting shower !” 

44 He talks as reverentially as il the old gentleman were his grand, 
father !” cried John Maitland. 

44 1 did not know that Nancy had a grandfather, extant , I 

mean. (I was not going to parody the vulgar quiz cn Brummell.) 

Of course I am aware, that there was once a Lord L ; and sur. 

mise, that a Sir Bernard At nesley was not produced out of a cruci- 
ble,” said Captain Blencowe, watching, from a distance, the impa- 
tience with which Lucy Maitland ?. waited Anncsley’s release from 
her brother. 

41 The old beggarman who appears to have excited your curiosity,’* 
said Basil, with some emphasis, 44 was no relation of mine ; but sim- 
ply a person who obliged me with shelter from the rain.” 

44 From South Audley to St. James’s street?” interrupted Blen- 
cowe. 

44 From South Audley to St. James’s street!” coolly repeated Basil, 
— and all the more coolly, that he was conscious of being in a 
passion. 

44 If no relation of ycurs then, perhaps a relation of the pretty 
Jewess?” persisted Maitland, also vexed at finding that his jokes 
were missing their mark. 

44 What pretty Jewess ?” persisted Basil. 44 1 should think your 
acquaintance with the Jews likely to be quite as extensive as my 
own.” 

44 1 should have been extremely happy to improve it with the 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA, — ABEDNEGO. 


lovely Esther,” retorted Maitland; ‘‘but you and Carrington, or 
rather Carrington and you, were beforehand with me. 5 ’ 

44 If you allude to Miss Verelst,” said Basil, gravely, “ I have once 
or twice informed you, that she was as much a Jewess as you a 
Christian, — that is, in name alone. I am astonished, however, Mait- 
land, that you should allude thus lightly to a lady whom you are 
anxious to introduce into your mother’s house, as the preceptress of 
your sisters.’’ 

“ Hear, hear, hear, hear, hear !” cried Maitland, in a voice that 
attracted the attention of the whole party. tc Here is Nancy own- 
ing, with matchless audacity, that though only a few hours in town, 
he has been already playing the secretary, and examining the en- 
gagements of pretty Esther, the opera girl.” 

44 Is there an opera girl of the name of Esther ?” demanded Wil- 
berton, who having been just elected of the Omnibus--box, felt bound 
to make himself Master cf its Arts and Sciences. 

“ I believe not /” replied Basil, struggling to command himself ; 

“ certainly not in the person of the young lady to whom Maitland 
alludes. As he seems resolved to acquaint himself with everybody’s 
business but his own, I am surprised lie does not obtain better infor- 
mation.’ 5 

44 My dear Nan ! I am now convinced that the shabby old fellow 
with the umbrella, whom Blencowe saw you skulking with in Picca- 
dilly, is some near relation, or you would not be so deuced touchy at 
having been discovered 1” eried young Maitland, starting from the 
sofa, and slapping Annesley provokingly on the shoulder. 

44 If Blencowe did see me with the individual, in question,” cried 
Basil, harassed out of his self-possession, 44 I wonder he did not give 
a more correct account ; since the stranger was an acquaintance of 
his long before he became an acquaintance of mine !” 

44 An acquaintance of Biencowe’s?” — eried John Maitland, while 
Loftus, Wilberton, and several others, crowded round on perceiving, 
by the tone of the parties, that something was going wrong. 

44 An acquaintance of Blencowe ’” persisted Basil Annesley ; 44 and 
an acquaintance of most of you beside ; — being no other than the re- 
doubtable A O. !” ' 

The silence of consternation instantly pervaded the giddy circle. 
It wras the first time he had seen so astounding an effect result 
from mere mention of the cabalistic name of — A. O. ! 

The following morning, Basil, furred to the chin, to meet the nip- 
ping blasts of January, (a severe frost having dried the rain of the 
preceding evening,) made his way towards South Audley street : — he 
felt entitled to make early inquiries after the health of Mrs. Verelst. 
On reaching the house, however, his title was disputed. As if in an- 
ticipation of his visit, the maid- servant who opened the door, placed 
a packet in his hand, and informed him that the young ladies Were 
44 out,’’ and Mr. and Mrs. Verelst 44 engaged.” 

The blood mounted into Basil’s cheeks at this announcement. It 
was the first time he had ever found cause to suppose himself too fre- 
quent a visiter, — there or elsewhere. He had not advanced many 
steps from the door, when it occurred to him that the parcel in his 
great-coat pocket, which evidently consisted of the volume he had 
left with Verelst the preceding night, might contain a note of expla- 
nation. Proceeding, therefore, to the bv-street on the opposite side of 
the Chapel, where he was secure from observation, he opened the 
packet. 

Merely a few cold and dry lines from Verelst ! 44 I return the 

book, and regret from my soul that you should havo been induced to 
bring it!’ 5 afforded only new grounds for vexation and perplexity. 
He had evidently given offence to those whom his whole liie was 
soent in exertions to serve and please; and without having the 
slightest clue to their grounds for resentment. 

Ere he replaced the volume in his pocket, Basil was moved by an 
irresistible impulse to re-examine the inscription which had so singu- 
larly attracted the attention of the artist’s family ; and his curiosity 
thus specifically directed towards it, he saw, beyond all question that 
the letters A. 0. were inscribed in precisely the same bandwriting 
which had embodied his communications with Abednego Osalcz ! — 

What could be the meaning of ibis ? Ho remembered the book 
in his mother’s possession as long as he could remember anything. 
At what preceding epoch could it have been the property of the 
Money-lender ? That, having been so, it should have passed into 
the hands of another, was nothing very wonderful ; — inasmuch as a 
person with the covetous propensities of Abednego, was likely to dis- 
pose of all or any tiling belonging to him, for a 44 consideration.’’ But 
that he should have been a buyer or seller at so early an age, as for 

a book of his to pass into the possession of the late Lord L , who, 

if living, would be eighty years old, appeared unaccountable. As 

Basil Annesley replaced the volume in his pocket, strange surmises 
crossed his brain, to which be would have been ashamed to give a 
more positive form. He had always entertained a sort of mysterious 
horror of people of Abednego’s nation and calling; and though he 
would have scornfully rebutted the assertion of another that he mis- 
took his Greek street friend for the Wandering Jew, involuntarily 
there recurred to his mind the sentence of — 44 Thou shalt tarry till I 
come !” 

“Considering all the friendly advice the old fellow gave me last 


15 ' 


evening, as we were trudging together in the rain,” mused Basil, 
while pursuing the selfsame road he had so recently trodden arm-in- 
arm with A. Q., — 44 1 am fully entitled to consider him a friend, and 
treat him as such. — I wall make the best of my way, therefore, to \ 
Greek street ; and ask him, m plain terms, whether the book was 
ever in his possession. If he should resent my intrusion, what then ? 1 
I am not in his power. — I have already booked up my interest. He ; 
can but give me a gruff answer ; and from an oddity like him, a gruff j 
answer is easily endured.” 

To Greek street, accordingly, he proceeded, and soon found his 
way to the well-remembered door. — Alas ! — huge papers, attached to 
the eentre panes of the dining-room windows, announced, in printed 
capitals — 

THIS CAPITAL ROOMY MANSION 
TO BE LET, 

ON A REPAIRING LEASE, 

Inquire at 49, Delahaye Street, 
WESTMINSTER, 

Every day from 12 till 2. 


“ How provoking !” was Basil’s involuntary ejaculation, as he 
stood contemplating the strange contrast of color between the white 
paper, (to give place to which the panes had been wiped,) and the 
filthy encrustations of the remainder of the windows. As the house, 
however, had appeared quite as uninhabited as now, on his first visit, 
he determined to make an attempt to enter; nor was it till he had 
both knocked and rung without effect several times, that he felt con- 
vinced of its abandonment by its strange proprietor. Giving up the 
point in despair, he proceeded on his way, resolved to visit Delahaye 
street the following day, at the early hour pointed out by the placard. 1 

He had not proceeded far, however, when a jarring sound, and a 
sort of yearning curiosity, induced him to turn his head ; when he 
perceived the door of the deserted house slightly opened, and the face 
of the dirty old woman peeping out. In a moment, he was back 
again ; and having caught the eye of the grim portcrcss,it was im- 
possible for her to shut the door in his face. 

4C Is your master at home ?” said he. 

44 Nobody lives here now but me ,” grumbled the old woman. 
“ ’Tisn’t no fault of mine if I didn’t answer the door. The owner of 
the house don’t choose to pay taxes for it no more, till it’s let : and . 
only lets me live here, on condition that I answer no knocks or rings, 
and don’t let myself be seen by the neighbors.” 

44 Mr. Osalez, then, is really not at home ?” inquired Basil. 

The old Woman contracted her brows, a3 if for an effort of com- 
prehension ; then drew back the dirty flap of her cap, and screwed 
her left eye like a person hard of hearing. 

44 1 inquired whether Mr. Osalcz were at home ?” 

44 A. O.’s to be spoke with at No. 49, Delahaye street, Westmin- , 
ster,” she repeated, either not knowing or not choosing to know the 
proprietor of the uninhabited house, by any other designation. 44 1 
would not say as much to a stranger: — but I knows you has had 
dealings with him afore, — and so I don’t mind !” 

Basil Annesley pointed to the notice in the window, as sparing him 
all necessity forespecial gratitude for her communication, and wished 
her good morning. As he made I 113 way towards St. James’s street, 
in a very different mood from that in which, three weeks before, he 
had pursued the same track, he couid not but revert, with unspeaka- 
ble irritation of mind, to his repulse at the door of the Verelsts. 
Never before had he felt so desirous of an interview with Esther ! 

Like most men of his age when passionately in love, Basil Annes- 
ley found little enjoyment in cither pleasure or business with which 
the object of his affections had not some remote connection. In 
spite, therefore, of his intentions of proceeding straight from Greek 
street to his Club, he found himself, in less than an hour afterwards, 
at Storey’s Gate; contemplating the narrow opening to Delahaye. 
street, and as much cheered in spirits as is usually the result of a 

stirring walk in frosty weather. A - 

He was now sufficiently acquainted with the eccentric habits oi 
the Money-lender te perceive, without surprise, that the house to 
which he had been referred was just as dilapidated of aspect as the ; 
one he had just quitted. It was clear enough that the numerous 
temporary residences of Abednego, consisted of old houses, which 
he bought up on speculation, and innabited till a favorable opportu- 
nity presented itself of getting them off his hands; and the mansion 
in Delahaye street, still more 44 roomy” than the “capital” one 
abandoned by the Money-lender in Soho, tvas to all appearance still 
"loomier and more ruinous. Hwasol red brick, having five win. 
dows in front, with a pretence at pilasters between; the said pilas- 
ters being also of brick, with capitals of carved wood-work supporting 
a heavy cornice,— of which the object was doubtful, unless it pur- 
ported to assist in weighing down tho frontage of the attic story to 
which it was appended, and the peaked, ill-tiled roofing above. 

“ Truly an appropriate den for the strange old fellow !” murmured 
Basil, as he approached the door; to which, contrary to the usage of 
London houses, it was necessary to descend a step from the street $ 


16 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA. — ABEDNEGO. 


finished probably after the completion of the house, which retained a 
sort of memorial air of antiquity among its modernized neighbors. 
He felt almost ashamed of presenting himself in broad daylight as a 
visiter, at a door which, he little doubted, was recognized by the 
neighborhood as the den of a money-lending Jew. 

In order to excite as little notice as possible, he contented himself 
with a modest ring at the bell ; and so leisurely were the movements 
of those appointed to answer the summons, that he had time to no. 
tice a sort of damp vault-like emanation from the area, which not 
even the frostiness of the atmosphere could overcome. — So stagnant 
was the air brooding over the flagstones encrusted in mounds with 
green moss, (now hoary in patches with rime,) that it seemed as 
though any person descending into that deserted area would have 
been as much in danger as asphyxiation, as in some mephitic well. 

At length the door creaked or rather growled, on its hinges ; and 
a starvling of a bay .appeared — the redundant growth of whose shock 
of hair was perhaps destined to replace a general scarcity of habili- 
ments ; his outer garments being sufficient:) ragged to show that no- 
thing in the way of shirt interposed between them and his sallow 
skin. 

“ I wish to speak to Mr. Osalez,” said Basil. 

The urchin stared, but made no reply. 

“ I was referred to this house,” persisted Basil, more and more 
ash&med of himself and his errand, — “ from Greek street, Soho.” 

“ You’re after hours !” said the boy, preparing to shut the door in 
his face. 

“ I know it,” snid Basil, placing his foot so resolutely on the 
threshold, as to render the attempt impossible ; and at the same mo- 
ment insinuating a coin into the hand of the boy, which, though 
sufficiently insignificant to have been flung contemptuously on the 
pavement by the door-opener of any other house in the street, was so 
much the most important ever clenched in the palm of the ragged 
page of the Money-lender, that he stood staring in stupid wonder- 
ment, instead of either persisting in excluding, or expressing his gra- 
titude to the intruder. 

" Are you Mr. Osalez’s servant ?” inquired Annesley, scarcely able 
to refrain from a smile. 

“ I’m Bill that sweeps the George street crossing,” replied the boy, 
tugging the longest of the elf-locks overhanging his forehead, in to- 
ken of gratitude to his benefactor. “ I runs of errands for the old 
gentleman, and opens the door from noon till two. Only to-day, I 
stayed later to light a fire and set on the kettle, ’cos the old gentle- 
man’s poorly.” 

“ He is at home then ? — Be so good as to carry up this card, and 
say I’m waiting to speak to him” — said Annesley. 

Thus certified of the clsims and good intentions cf the visiter, the 
boy invited him into the hall, while he proceeded to do his errand ; 
and while the little sweeper, leaving his heavy shoes at the bottom 
of the square, creaking staircase, shuffled up stairs, Basil stood con- 
templating the dark but roomy hall, paved with black and white 
marble, which, by dirt and friction had now degenerated into grey 
and yellow ; besides being cracked in many of the lozenge-shaped 
squares, and in others sunk into the flooring. In the angle formed 
by the dingy staircase, stood an old sedan chair, dropping into decay 
and covered with mildew, yet still retaining in its gilt mouldings to- 
kens of aristocratic emblazonment. 

Shuddering with cold and the depression produced by the gloom of 
a spot into which the daylight of that narrow street struggled imper- 
fectly through the half-shuttered windows, Basil waited impatiently 
till the barefooted boy shuffled down again. 

“ Master’ll see you, — you may walk up!” said Bill, pointing up 
ward with his thumb, while resuming his shoes ; having done which 
he disappeared towards the basement floor, leaving Basil to find his 
way unescorted to the presence of Abednego Osalez. 

Concluding that he had only to follow the custom of morning vi- 
sits, and enter the drawing-room, Basil walked leisurely up and 
opened the door that presented itself on the first landing. But with 
all his cognizance of the peculiarities of his host, he was not prepared 
for the scene that presented itself within. The drawing-rooms of 
which he had opened the door, though low, and rendered apparently 
lower, as in many old-fashioned houses, by a ceiling overlaid with or- 
naments and divided into compartments by beams of carved wood- 
work, were unusually spacious. Yet spacious as they were, not an 
alley presented itself by which Basil could penetrate into the interior, 

: without the certainty of covering himself with dust and cobwebs, by 
collision with the heterogeneous objects crowded into the area ; — 

; pieces of antiquated furniture, articles of virtu, besides a variety of 
undeflnable and describable things, which looked as if assembled to- 
gether by a hasty removal in a fire or the sacking of a town, thirty 
years before, and abandoned ever since the dust- gathering and smoke 
gathering operations of Time. 

Heaped on the floor, in one earner of the room, like potatoes in a 
barn or beans in a granary, lay the contents of a library ; from their 
rich old bindings apparently valuable, but overgrown with dust and 
mould, like the brieks of some ruined pile. — To the left of the door 
on entering, stood a fine marble copy of the Venus de Medicis, which 
the prudery of the spiders had covered with draperies of black cob- 


webs, that hung like draperies down to the very pedestal. Further 
on, was the Whetter, in bronze, on whose dark surface, on the con- 
trary, the coating of dust, in ledges, assumed a lighter colour ; and 
beyond, in all directions, were slabs of pietra dura slanting against 
which consoles ot carved ebony, and has reliefs in rosso antico and 
other precious marbles, side by side with tawdry French clocks, Dres- 
den cups and Nankin vases ; groupings of stuffed birds, which, by 
the fracture of their glass-cases, and the admission of the atmosphere 
had sacrificed their bright plumage to the moths ; so that only the 
shrunken skin, skeleton stuffed with straw, and staring glass eyes, 
remained perceptible, in ghastly mockery of the skill of the natural- 
ist. Crystal girandoles stood on the consoles, so encrusted with dust 
as to have lost all symptom of transparency ; while of a magnificent 
copy of Correggio’s Notte that stood frameless against a japan cabi- 
net, the rats had gnawn off a corner ! There was a species of altar 
with folding wings, such as are used for the travelling devotions of 
crowned or mitred heads, adorned with chasing, the work of Cellini 
or one of his pupils, which, though evidently of silver, was tarnished 
to the tint of bronze ! 

Never before had Basil Annesley contemplated so singular a waste 
of property ! But that these precious objects were intermingled 
with trays of old iron, rolls of lead, and fragments of packing-cases, 
he would have compared this singular museum to the brie a brae 
shops he had visited on the Quai Voltaire at Paris, or in the Juden 
G s asse at Frankfort ; saving that, in these, though the chaos of va- 
luable works of art was quite as confused, the strictest cleanliness 
was observed to preserve the component objects from injury or disre- 
gard. 

After a deliberate survey of the room, a glance at the coating of 
dust through which the coloring of a parqueted floor, now so rare in 
London was faintly perceptible, convinced him that, for some time 
past, no foot but his own had crossed the threshold ; and that he 
must pursue his search elsewhero after the proprietor of the extraor- 
dinary treasury he had thus invaded. 

Closing the door carefully after him, he ascended another flight of 
stairs, and again opened the first door facing the landing. But the 
result on this occasion was nearly the same as on the first ; with the 
exception that the warehouse of curiosities on the second floor, ap- 
peared exclusively devoted to the reception of pictures. 

“ My friend the Jew has evidently a taste for lodging as near as 
possible to the sky !” thought Basil, proceeding to the attic story ; 
and as he noticed the increase of light and decrease of density in the 
humid atmosphere while continuing to ascend, ha came to the conclu- 
sion that, were he a lodger in the old house in Delahaye Street, he 
should foil 3 w the example of its proprietor. 

The door that now faced him on the landing was slightly ajar, as 
if purposely left so by the ragged page, by way of indication. Basil 
tapped slightly to warn the inmate of his approach, and a hoarse 
whisper bade him t; Come in.” 

Before a smoking fire composed of small coal and shavings, the 
crazy grate containing which the stifling effluvia peculiar to rusty 
iron, in an old-fashioned bergere covered with the ragged remains of 
a rich brocade, which, in the days of Queen Anne and the Sedan 
chair below, had probably supported the graceful limbs of many a 
court beauty, — sat the Money-lender ; enrobed in a faded but mbgni- 
ficent wrapper of velvet and sables, and with his strongly marked 
features and picturesque costume, looking as though he had been sit- 
ting for his picture to Rembrandt. 

“ I am afraid your wet walk has had a worse influence on you 
than on myself, Sir ?” said Basil, struck by the hoarseness of the 
tones in which the old man attempted to inquire his business. 

“ A slight sere throat, — nothing more !” grumbled Abednego ; 
“ easily cured wi£h a quarter of an ounce of gum arahic and a pint of 
hot water ; half the price of a hackney-coach fare ! — What do you 
want with mo ?” — 

“ So little,” replied Basil Annesley, seating himself on a rickety- 
straw chair opposite the invalid, ” that I would have by no means 
troub'ed you had I imagined you were indisposed.” 

“ Then why did you come at all ?” — demanded the Money-lender, 
with surly abruptness. 

‘ e I came to ask you an idle question. You were in such perfect 
health and spirits when we parted yesterday evening, that I had no 
expectation of being so much an intruder as I find myself to day. — 
I have been as far as Greek street in search of you.” 

“ Do you want to take the old house on a repairing lease ?” inqui- 
red Abednego, with a sneer. tc You imagine, perhaps, that some of 
the money-bags of A. O. will be overlooked in the old cupboards and 
odd corners ?” — 

“ I hsve no views on your money-bags, Mr. Osalez, excepting 
such as you have found me very frank in declaring,” replied Annes- 
ley, with a degree of steadiness that did him no disservice with one 
accustomed to be addreesed in terms cf abject subservience. 

tc Your question then, I am to conclude, simply regarded the slate 
of my health ?” retorted the Money-lender, the wrinkles which had 
ruckered the corners of his keen eyes into a sarcastic expression, gra- 
dually relaxing. 

“ Still less I I never saw a person more robust than my companion 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA. — ABEDNEGO. 


17 


m 


of last night. I merely wished to ask whether you could give me any 
information concerning a volume in my possession, winch bears on 
the title page your initials, inscribed in your own handwriting.” 

44 I should be somewhat puzzled, I fancy/’ replied Abednego, with 
a hoarse chuckle, 41 to give you precise information concerning all 
the varieties of property which, one way or other, have passed thro’ 
my hands ! j buy whatever I can buy cheap, and sell it whenever I 
can sell it dear ! The fools from whom I purchase, or who purchase 
from me y are of no more account in my eyes than one of the atoms 
of dust which your coat has imbibed by your recent visit to my lum- 
ber rooms l” 

Following the indication of the old man’s skinny finger, pointed to- 
wards him, Basil perceived that his scrupulously neat dress bore un- 
satisfactory traces of the filmy drapery of the Venus de Medrcis. 

“ With such feelings,” resumed Abednego, on perceiving that his 
young visiter evinced no fastidious tokenp of disgust at the misad- 
venture which had befallen him, “ I do not often set my mark on 
those temporary belongings, — any book in which I ever inscribed my 
tials, must have been a book I valued !” 

** You can scarcely have failed to value a work so interesting as 
this 1” replied Basil, drawing from his pocket the volume he had 
brought from Barlingham^for the amusement of Verelst, and placing 
it before Abednego, so as to bring the inscription under his eyes. 

To 1 is u ter sur { rise, the effect produced on Osalez by the sight 
was scarcely jess remarkable than that which it had wrought in the 
mother of Esther ! Toe old man fell back in his chair and, for a mo- 
ment appeared to gasp for breath; while Basil sat watching him 
with uneasy consternation. 

“ That boy takes as long to boil my hot water, as a chemist to 
compound a medicine !” were the first words that burst from the qui- 
vering lips of Abednego, as if in apology for his emotion ; 44 yet I told 
him 1 was choking with my sore throat I” 

“ Will you give me leave to ring sir ?” said Basil, perceiving that 
his singular host was desirous of evading his observation. 

“ I give you leave to find a bell, —if you are able !” retorted the old 
man, as though priding himself on the denuded condition of his habi- 
tation. “ No, no !— no bells here, my fine captain, nor menials to 
answer them i No knaves in showy liveries, like those who held the 
greatcoat on your back for you, last night, at my lady Maitland’s, 
who have received no wages save their pickings, stealings and per- 
quisites, these two years past ! If there were indeed such a thing in 
this old house as an unbroken bell wire, it would serve only to fright- 
en the poor rats, who arc as much masters here as myself. I have no 
servant except the beggar boy who showed you in.” 

44 And do you consider such an unprotected state safe, sir, with 
such an amount of property in the house ?” — inquired Basil, wishing 
to give him lime to recover his first surprise ere he renewed his inqui- 
ries. 

“ The h&lf.starved terrier I let loose at night, is a better guard than 
a company of the household brigade !” replied Abednego'; who had 
thrust the volume aside on the tabic, as if not choosing to encounter 
a second view. 

44 But even if the dog gave the alarm in your infirm state” — 

44 Tnis is the first day’s illness I have had these twenty years ; and 
you may perceive that I am prepared to take care of myself !” inter- 
rupted the old man, suddenly opening the drawer of the table beside 
him, and taking out a bro.ee of pistols, ©n half cock, which he quiet, 
ly replaced, — having evidently exhibited them to reassure, not to in- 
timidate his guest. 

44 Besides, the police have their eye on my hQuse. I have them in 
fee as I have the insurance offices, as a matter of business.” 

44 But the discredi able urchin who waits upon you ?’’ 

44 Regards me as little better than a beggar ! Where a half-starv- 
ed brat sees only an empty larder, he beholds only misery and want. 
The chef d’oeuvres you saw just now in my drawing-room, have less in- 
trinsic value in his eyes, than a sirloin of beef in an eating-house win- 
dow. Bill the sweeper pities me, sir, — pities me as a poor old man, 
almost as much a pauper as himself i” 

44 He may some day come into contact with people able to enlight- 
en him,” observed Basil, gravely. 44 May I ask, sir, whether you 
have any recollection of the book beside you V 3 

“ You got it from your mother I s ’ said Abednego, as if startled in- 
to the rej tinder. 

44 You sold it to her, then ?”— demand til Basil, anxious to account 
for his knowledge of the fact. But at the word, Abednego half 
started from his chair, as if smitten with a sore and sudden pain. In 
a moment, however, he recovered himself. 

44 Nay, — I only so concluded by force of inference,” said he. 44 A 
taste for the works of Holbein and Hollar, appeared more appropiiate 
to an accomplished woman, than to a gay guardsman. Perhaps you 
wish to dispose of the book ?” 

“ I am not, thank God, so straitened, even by the imprudences 
which have rendered me your debtor,” said Basil, proudly, 44 as to be 
driven to the sale of my mother’s property, — or even oi property de- 
rived from her. 1 mereiy wished to account to myself for the inscrip- 
tion for your initials on the title page.” 

44 The initials of A. O. have, I admit, obtained strange notoriety by 


my means,” said Abednego ; “ nevertheless you cannot suppose me to 
be the only individual who bears them, or has ever borne them V\ 

44 Scarcely 1” replied young Annesiey. 44 But these leiters are dis- 
tinctly of your own tracing 1” ^ 

44 Are you so expert in handwritings as to swear to that?” demand- ' 
cd Abednego ; abstaining, however, from a glance towards the book 
again officiously placed before him by Basil. 44 My dear young friend 
—take my advice, and neither perplex your brains by surmises on 
subjects that little concern you, nor by inferences arising out of idle j 
coincidences, which the inexperience of boyhood conceives, to be preg- 
nant with meaning. You are surprised lor instance, that I am toler- 
ably well acquainted with your movements, and the movements of 
people so much out of my sphere of life as Lord Maitland’s wife. A 
moment’s reflection ought tc convince you, that a portion of the Mo- 
ney-lender’s business is to obtain the most accurate information con- 
cerning the spendthrifts of the day, — -already his debtors, or his debt- 
ors likely to become. I look upon all such as constituting my fLeks 
anti herds ; — -as much my property as the physician regards the gouty 
lord lolling past him in his chariot; or the undertaker the hectic 
wretch he hears coughing at the street corner 1” 

44 It may be your business to seek such information : the wonder 
lies in your obtaining it !” 

44 All information may be had for money 1” rejoined Abednego, 
rubbing his lean hands with an air of exultation. 44 Everything is to 
be had for money — if applied with the tame intelligence that gathered 
it together. Look at me, Mr. Annesiey! did you ever see a more 
loathsome scarecrow V 3 i 

And as he spoke the Jew raised from his head the Greek cap, em- 
broidered with tarnished gold lace, by which its bald crown was cov- 
ered;, as if to give greater expansion to his ugliness. 

44 Ay, smile, sir ! — You are too civil to confirm theungracious ver- 
dict of a man who sees himself as he sees all things else in this world 
— in the clear and searching light of truth ! But I tell yon that, un- < 
sightly as lam, women both young and fair cajole me with their 
courtesies : — I would say caresses, but that you must be an eyc-wit- 
ness to the fact, to have faith for disproportion so monstrous. Look 
ye here ! — this tawdry thing, 4 ’ said he, pointing to the cap, which he 
now replaced upon his head, “was woiked for me by the white 
hands of a countess; and if I chose it, she is ready to embroider a 
dozen such, — nay, to place them with her aristocratic fingers upon the ; 
grey head of the old Money-lender !” 

44 For which subjection to your will, you despise her !” said Basil 
with indignation. 

“ I despise her, because the necessities that bring her cringing to 
my feet, arise Irom the wantonness of folly, — nay, the wantonness of 
crime ; for, in a wife and mother, folly becomes criminal as vice! 
This woman must shine, forsooth, and glitter, and dazzle, by the 
splendor of her entertainments, and fashion of her dress. Why ? 
Because she is proud because she has the ambition of being cited 
for her distinction of looks and maimers 1 — And what is the result of 
her pride and her distinction ? Even that she is made to crawl in 
ail the indigence of extravagance, to the knees of A. O the Money- 
lender, and beg him, with tears in her eyes, and prayers upon her 
lips, — nay, more than prayers, if I were brute enough to profit by her 
subjection, — to take pity upon her necessities. 

“ You doubt this ? — Read, read ! It may be treachery for a lover 
to exhibit the letters of a fond and trusting woman. It is none for 
the Money-lender to betray the correspondence of a thriftless cus- 
tomer !” — 

And snatching a pen from the old leaden ink-stand beside him, 
and passing it hastily through the signature of a letter which, while 
speaking he had taken from an envelope lying on the table, he pre- 
sented it to Basil. Remark the countess’s coronet on the seal,” said , 
he, 4r and admire the handwriting, and elegance of the paper, in con- 
firmation of my assertion, ere you peruse the abject pleadings of this 
fashionable bankrupt 1” 

Basil Annesiey shuddered as he read ; for every line and every syl- 
lable adduced horrible confirmation of Abednego’s assertions. 

44 You knew not half the advantages of my calling!” cried the » 
old mad, laughing with feeble triumph at the air of cons 'er nation ■ 
that overspread the countenance of Basil, under the influence of one 
of those painful discoveries which tend to shake our confidence in 
human nature. 44 Till now, you regard the old beggar of Paulet 
street as the crazy proprietor of a warehousefull of worm-eaten curio- 
silica, left in deposit by his customers,— of a few crazy houses,— and 
perhaps a few floating thousands lent out on infamous usury. Ha! ’ 
1— ha I- — ha ! — ha ! — You would give worlds, boy, — worlds , for a 
thousandth part of my influence and authority !-- Preferment and 
promotion lie in the bureau of the Money-lender ! — I command most 
of those who command the destinies of the kingdom, I have princes, 
ministers, bishops, among my debtors ; } 7 our highflying orator, your 
rhapsod zing author fellows who, upon the hustings, or in the house 
or at Exeter Hall, get up and specify upon virtue, honor, honesty ; but 
whose shallow consciences are not the less ad measurable by certain 
shreds of parchment, called bonds, which I hold in my possession. ; 
There are few things they dare refuse me : and even as war making 
kings tremble under the governance of Rothschild, under mine, — : 


is 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA, — ABEDNEGO. 


under the control of A. O. shivering in his garret, — abide more than 
one, two, or three of those to whom you uncover your head reveren- 
tially as yon pass ! You saw me keep the Duke of Rochester danc- 
ing attendance at my gate. As much, and more, also, have I done 
to men having the blood-royal of England in their veins !” 

The spirits of Basil were overpowered by the vehemence of excite- 
ment gradually enkindled in the old man’s frame by the progress of 
discussion. He almost feared that Abednego must be under the in- 
fluence of fever, to become thus strangely communicative. 

J “ Open yonder bureau,” said the Money-lender, extending his 
skinny finger to one clamped with iron, which stood beside the wretch- 
id pallet that formed his comfortless bed. 

And Basil almost mechanically obeying, beheld within, in separate 
compartments, piles of rouleaus, such as he had seen in the secretaire 
n Greek si reel, besides a variety of morocco-cases. 

“Bring me a handful of those baubles— or stay ! you know not 
,he ways of the place,” he continued, tottering from his chair, till he 
itood beside Annesley, leaning on the bureau, of which he opened a 
secret drawer. “ Look here ! — these are a duchess’s diamonds. I 
lold them in pledge while she appears at the right hand of the throne 
n false trinkets of paste ! These sapphires are the property of a ban- 
ker’s wife, who pretends to have grown* serious, 5 as a pretence for ab- 
uring the use of jewels ; because, deceitful jade ! her own is in the 
seeping of A. 0. ! But this — this is my crown of glory !” chuckled 
die Money-lender, bringing forth a small round case, containing a 
bracelet of brilliants ? — “ Do you see this miniature ? — Six years only 
lave elapsed, since the proud and happy young lord it represents, 
placed it on the arm of his lovely bride ! He has been three years 
n his grave, — and the miniature is mine l The tinsel of fashion by 
which the widow is trying to bewilder another silly victim into wed- 
ock, is procured with means of my supplying. But she broke the 
leart of her first husband by her extravagance. It may not be easy 
0 find another ready to be heart-broken.” 

“ Surely you had better rest yourself again, sir, in your easy chair,” 
aid Annesley, eager to avoid these hateful revelations. “ Pardon 
ne, if I own that I am by no means anxious to see the veil uplifted 
rom the deformities and defeatures of my fellow-creatures.’ 5 

‘•I have, nevertheless, too deep a stake in your well doing, not to 
tfford you the means of discriminating between the sheep of the 
lock, and the wolves in sheep’s clothing,” said the Money-lender, 5 ’ 
'Is he doubly locked the bureau, and retreated to his seat. “ Admit, 5 ’ 
aid he, gathering more closely around him the robing of his furred 
ymar, which might have served a theatrical Doge of Venice, or 
irand Pensionary of Holland, — “ admit that, if I choose to deny my. 
elf the daintiness of being drugged by a fashionable apothecarj 7 ', and 
taw died over by a canting housekeeper, it is not for want of means 
o keep such reptiles in m}^ pay ?” 

“ Which makes me only the more regret, sir, your obstinate dis- 
omfort,” replied Basil, beginning to survey the squalid wretchedness 
f the millionary, as the crotchet of a maniac. “ You are ill — more 
11, perhaps, than you imagine ; and left here all night alone, (for 
veil the boy, I conclude, quits you at night ?) alone, with the gnaw- 
hg of the rats for companionship — to fight against fever and suffoca- 
ion — you may have cause to repent your rejection of the means of 
are and comfort, secured you by your ample fortune.’ 5 
“I have been left alone with worse things than gnawing rats — 
ven with my own bitter and gnawing thoughts, and yet struggled 
hrough the trial,’ 5 said Abednego. “ You pity me, young man, for 
Asking to be stifled by a quinsy, when I might hire some frowsy old 
roman to sit up with me, whose gripe upon my throat at midnight 
re re a worse peril than my disease ! — Basil ! had you ever experi- 
need the heart-choking that suspends the impulses of life, under a 
?nse of the contumely of those you love — had you ever felt the fever 
iat throbs in the burning veins, when disparaged by the idol of your 
mderness — the woman for whom you would have periled every hope 
'your soul, in this world, and the world to come — had you seen the 
*ols, the knaves, whom you despise with the full force of your vig- 
'ous intellect — the warm fervor of your generous heart, triumphing 
/er your defeat, and asking how you presume to form pretensions to 
e smiles of beauty ; you — you — with nothing to recommend you 
it the possession of youth, ardor, mind, cultivation, honor, truth — 
id treble the earthly enjoyments of the lordly home from which you 
'sire to remove her to the temple of wedded love where you would 
ive served her as a slave ; — had you known all this, Basil Annes- 
y — had you felt those contemptuous looks eating like caustic into 
■ur flesh — had you heard those insulting words piercing like poison- 
arrows into the marrow of your bones — you would have been con- 
ht to live as I do, apart from the titled herd, apart from the rapa- 
)us crew, despising alike the hirelings for bread, and the hirelings 
r vanity ; — alone — independent — brooding over the sense of a 
jghty wrong, and anticipating the triumph of a mighty revenge! 5 ’ 
f' All this I could perfectly understand,” replied young Annesley, 
-cling himself against the awe with which he was beginning to lis- 
l to what appeared to be the rhapsodies of a lunatic — “ provided 
ur privation tended towards the accomplishment of aught beyond 
Ur personal inconvenience. But what enemy of yours will be the 


worse for your remaining this bitter night destitute of attendance and 
medicaments ?’ 5 

“ They will be the worse for the results of a system of which thee© 
hardships form a part ! 5 ’ replied Abednego, in a gruffer voice, as if 
exhausted by his recent outburst. “ I discern, by the growing supe- 
riority of your glance, young man, the contempt kindling in your soul 
towards my short-sightedness ! — You recall to yourself the words of 
the Psalmist — ‘ He heapeth up riches, and cannot tell who shall gath- 
er them !’ I know — I know, Basil Annesley — and I glory in know- 
ing ! He who gathers them will shed coals of fire upon those who — 
But no matter! What care you for the burning injuries or burning 
revenge of the old Money-lender ? 55 

“ I shall care much more, sir, to know that you are lying here de- 
void of the necessaries of life, while my pillow has been smoothed by 
your kindness,’ 5 replied Basil mildly ; “ but I cannot offer you my 
aid. I cannot now ask you to accept the services of a faithful ser- 
vant of my own ; because, in the instance of others, you have shown 
me that you consider such acts of kindness to be interested and mer- 
cenary. 5 ’ 

“ Not from one so young and guileless as you /* 5 burst in a hoarse 
murmur from the parched lips of Abedcego. “ Be satisfied ! — It 
would make me far more uncomfortable to have my poor old dwell- 
ing ransacked by the curiosity of strangers, than to lie here conscious 
that the javelin of death is at my breast, and that there is none to 
close my eyes if the grim One gets the best of it !— I -want no prying 
Jacks to spy out the nakedness of the land, or into its abundance; 
to exult over my empty cellar, or covet my brimming coffers. There 
is less peril, Basil Annesley, in the quinsy which, as you perceive, is 
gradually thickening my voice and filming my eyes, than in the ma- 
lice of the cut-throats with whom your rascal in livery might league 
himself, on the temptation of the wealth that lies ensconced in this 
old seeming rat- hole, richer of contents than the palace of Aladdin ! 
— But you pretend a desire to do me service?’ 5 said he, half inter- 
rogatively. 

Annesley answered not a word ; and the Money-lender was forced 
to reiterate his question. 

“ I pretend nothing,’ 5 replied Basil, coldly. — “ I pity your infatua- 
tion — I pity your abandonment ; — and would fain induce you to take 
pity on yourself! 55 

“ I repeat that you just now tendered me offers of service. If sin- 
cere, and your good will be not a mere pretence, eonfer an obliga- 
tion on me by giving me this volume ! 5 ’ said Abednego, striking his 
bony hand on the copy of Hollar lying on the table. 

“ I cannot do that ! 5 ’ replied Basil, in a decided tone ; “ for it is 
not mine to give. It is the property of my mother !” 

The piercing glance of Abednego peered from under his bushy 
eyebrows, and fixed itself scrutinizingly on his face. 

“ How comes it, then, in your possession ?” said he. 

“I arrived yesterday morning from Barlingham Grange, where she 
resides, 5 ’ replied Annesley, firmly, “ and brought it with me 5 ’ — 

“ Without Aer knowledge ? 5 ’ — 

“ Without her knowledge !’* replied the young man, in a less as- 
sured voice. Bat the admission appeared less to provoke the con- 
tempt than the satisfaction of his singular companion. A ray of joy 
twinkled in his deep-set eyes. 

“And what tempted you to bring it with you ?’ 5 inquired Abedne- 
go. with persevering curiosity. 

“ I wished to show it to a friend, to whom, as a curious work of 
art, I thought the sight might be advantageous, 55 replied the harass- 
ed guest. 

ct That is, you wanted to conciliate the blind old father of Esther 
Yerelst ! 5 ’- — added the Money-lender, while the color mounted to the 
temples of the astonished Basil. 

“ Do you mean me to believe you in league with Satan, as well as 
the comptroller of half the destinies of London ? 55 — cried he, losing 
all self-possession. 

Abednego laughed aloud at this apostrophe ; and the huskiness of 
his voice was now painful to hear. 

“ You go far out of your way, young sir, 5 ’ said he, “ to account for 
my participation in the household secrets of a needy artist ! — Is it so 
very marvellous that I — A. O. the Money-lender — should be aware 
that the sum of money you raised so rashly at my hands, was devo- 
ted to meet acceptances which had their origin in the embarrassments 
of that wrong-headed ass — Yerelst the painter !’ 5 

Basil Annesley now fairly started from his seat. 

‘‘Somewhat an onerous requital, 5 ’ persisted Abednego, with a 
sneer, “ for a few cups of linden- water, bestowed upon you during 
your illness at Heidelberg, and a few lessons in crayons!” 

“ Mr. Osalez,” — Basil was beginning, — but Abednego persevered 
in a louder key — 

‘^You fancy, 55 he continued, “ that it would go to the stubborn 
heart of Lady Annesley, to know that a bock of hers had fallen into 
the hands of an obscure, money-lending, miserly, contemned, and 
outcast Jew ! — But I tell you, young gentleman, that, haughty as she 
is, her blood would rise to fever-heat, did she know that her only 
son— the son of her pride, if not of her affections — had pledged his 
heart, and meditated pledging his hand, to the daughter of a starving 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA. — ABEDNEGO. 


IQ 


artist, and the granddaughter of But no matter ! Her scorn and 

her humiliation are no affair of mine ! — But here comes my brew of 
diet-drink !’» cried he, as the dirty urchin, carrying a jug of hot wa- 
ter, peeped into the room ; “and the more welcome, that my throat 
is parched with talking. So no more to-day, Mr. Annesley ! Un- 
tempting as my bed may look to you , I am cowardly enough to feel 
that my old bones will be the better for it. Farewell ! If you have 
consistency enough, to care two days hence for the ailment that 
paints such compassion in your looks at this moment, pr’ythee come 
and see whether death or A. 0. have fought the better fight ! Till 
then, surely, you will entrust to my hands a volume so replete with 
instruction as this said he, again laying his hand upon the book, 
which Annesley had no pretext for refusing as a loan. And almost 
before he knew what he was about, he had been unconsciously dis- 
missed by the Money-lender ; and was standing on the pavement of 
Delahaye Street, listening to the bolting, and barring, and putting up 
of the rusty chain within, by Bill the sweeper. 

Basil had not resisted Abednego’s commands, that the boy should 
follow him down to open the door ; for he thus secured an opportu- 
nity to enforce, by a second bribe, his charge to the uncouth page on 
no account to leave the invalid that night ; but to be in readiness to 
receive the medicines and instructions he was proceeding to despatch 
from the nearest chemists’s, for the alleviation of the alarming mala- 
dy of A. O. 

CHAPTER IX. 

Never had Basil Annesley installed himself before the fire of his 
lodgings in so desponding a mood as after his interview with Abed- 
nego. Not a single point or person whereon he could fix liis thoughts 
with complacency, by way of relief! After a visit to his mother, in 
which he had been made to feel himself an unwelcome guest, after 
becoming an ear-witness to the ravings of the old gardener, which he 
would have given worlds to efface from his memory, he had been 
spurned from the door which he had a right to approach as a bene- 
factor, and where he would nevertheless have been proud to kneel 
in all the self-sacrificing humility of love ! 

His mother, he knew to be exposed to the most harassing and pain- 
ful duties. The family of Verelst appeared to be distracted by some 
peculiar contrariety of fortune, of which he was unable to surmise 
the origin. And now, his benefactor, the man for whom, involunta- 
rily, he entertained at once the greatest interest and greatest con- 
tempt, was suffering from a dangerous disease. In neither of the 
three cases could he exercise a beneficial influence. Gladly would 
he have dedicated all the mean3 at his command, to alleviate the 
pangs of any of the three. But he was powerless as a child. All he 
could do was to sympathize in silence, and at a distance. 

To say that no floating visions mingled with his many vexations, 
would be disingenuous. In the depths of his reverie, poor Basil seem- 
ed to behold passing before him, as in a dream, all that was occur- 
ring at Barlingham — all that was chancing in the drawing-room of 
Verelst — all that was exercising a fatal empire in the miserable attic 
of A. 0. 

So irritated was his mind by these perplexities, that he felt un- 
equal to the exertion of dining at mess ; and he accordingly deter- 
mined to take an early dinner at the Clarendon, and proceed to the 
play; the resource of homeless men in London against the publicity 
of their Club, or loneliness of their lodgings. 

Now the play, in the month of January, is as habitual a resort of 
fashionable loungers as it is secure from their presence the moment 
the season commences. Scarcely had Basil taken a back seat in one 
of the public boxes, leaning back with folded arms, for the unmolest- 
ed enjoyment of his reflections, when an unusual degree of move- 
ment and conversation in one of the private boxes attracted his no- 
tice, and he perceived that it was tenanted by a party of his brother 
officers — Loftus, Biencowe, and Maitland, the old boy Carrington, 
and the young boy Wiiberton — precisely those whom others would 
have designated as his “ friends. 55 This was vexatious ; for Loftus 
had invited him to dine with them and join a party to the Adelphi, 
and they would now perceive that the engagement he had pleaded, 
was a mere subterfuge to avoid them ; for he rightly conjectured that 
the unusual vociferation in their box was produced by their discov- 
ery of his entrance, and ejaculations of indignation at his desertion. 

He was consequently a$ little at his ease at the theatre, as he 
would have been at home. To his disturbed thoughts, the eyes of 
the merry party seemed to be constantly upon him. He fancied them 
still pursuing the system of quizzing which had irritated him the pre- 
ceding night into an unlucky explanation, the full force of embar- 
rassments arising from which had been demonstrated to him by the 
officiousness of Carrington, on his way from Arlington Street to the 
Club. 

It was, perhaps, because annoyed by the sort of inquisition to 
which he felt himself exposed — for the laughers had the advantage 
over him in point both of position and numbers — that, the moment 
the curtain dropped upon a tragedy composed of glazed calico, gilt 
paper, glass beads, cotton velvet, twelve flourishes of trumpets, a 
voice more uproarious in offering “ a kingdom for a horse 5 ' than ail 
the twelve put together, and a prompter still louder and more active 


i than both the trumpets and tragedian, Basil quitted the theatre. He 
I loresaw that the significant smiles and whisperings they had directed 
towards him during the courtship of Lady Anne and the mild hero^ 
ism of Richmond, would have double scope during thb tumults of the 
pantomime. 

It was a chilly night. The moonlight lay like snow upon the fro- 
zen pavement ; and that vivid brightness, which in summer seems 
intended to facilitate happier enjoyment than the glare of day, eithet 
for the revellers of this world, or those which, unseen and unsuspect* 
ed, disport themselves impalpably around us, seemed lost and thrown 
away on a state of atmosphere that drove both man and beast to shel- 
ter. There was nothing to tempt forth fay or fairy — the sylph to the 
moonbeam, the undine to the wave. A few shivering mortals crept 
along the streets despairing— or by a brisker encounter with the efcld. 
attempted to lessen the evil ; and it was impossible to connect the 
idea of that frozen moonlight with anything but suffering and dis- 
content. 

Even the young blood of Basil was chilled within him ; and though, 
in the course of his musings during the tragedy, he had made up ki< 
mind to proceed to Westminster and ascertain that the man whose 
eccentricities had so enthralled his attention was not wholly without 
assistance on such a night, yet on emerging from the heated theatre 
into the frosty atmosphere without, his courage almost failed him. 

As he issued from the public door in Bow Street adjoining the pri- 
vate one, a tiger in livery, with a cockade in his hat, touched it to 
him, and ran to resume liis place in the cabriolet he had abandoned 
to the care of a brother atom in order to gossip with the footmen in 
the entry. His attention attracted by this irregularity, Basil per- 
ceived that two of t^e cabs in waiting were those of John Maitland 
and Biencowe, both of which were always at his orders ; and aware 
that neither of them would be in request for two hours to come, he 
jumped into that of the latter, and having hurried as far as the en- 
trance of Delahaye Street, desired the lad to drive back to the thea- 
tre, and await his master — to whom he was to explain the occur- 
rence. Thus secured from a chilly walk, Basil proceeded, on the op- 
posite side of the pavement, to the house occupied by Abednego; and 
raised his eyes anxiously towards the attic story. 

Not a gleam of light in the windows — not a token of habitation 
The old man might have been left alone and fireless, to wrestle with 
his disease ; nay, he might have sunk under it, united with the in, 
clemency of the weather. It was just possible that the room occu- 
pied by the Money-lender might not face the street — for Annesley 
had taken no note in the morning of its look out ; but if not, the idesi 
of an old man in a high fever, half suffocated with a quinsy, (a dis- 
ease of all others demanding the watchfulness of an attendant,) ex- 
posed to the chill of that deserted rat-hole, was indeed a picture of 
desolation. 

In spite of the cold, he stood for some minutes wrapt in his cloak, 
contemplating the quaint old mansion. Then, as if conscious of the 
absurdity of interfering in the domestic affairs of one to whom he bore 
so little affinity, and who w T ould probably resent his kindness as im- 
portunate or artful, he walked away as far as the corner of the street, 
on his road homeward. Again, however, his steps were arrested by 
a sense of the isolated wretchedness of A. G. ! 

a If the old creature should die in the night for want of aid !” mur- 
mured he ; and, at the supposition, back he hastened to the house, 
and stepping down to the door, rang gently at the bell. 

Basil was prepared to allow the greatest possible latitude for the 
deliberation of the little sweeper, to whom, in sending the medicines 
from the chemist’s, he had addressed a message, promising a rewar<3 
on the morrow, if he adhered to his promise of not quitting the house 
He therefore waited quietly at the door, till he conceived the poor ur- 
chin had found time to shuffle up stairs from the heap of shavings ir 
the front kitchen, on which he had promised Basil to pass the night 
visiting, from time to time, the chamber-door of the invalid. Bui 
when five minutes had elapsed, Basil rang again ; at the end of ten 
a third time. Still, no answer ! 

Weary of standing in the cold, he began to exercise his personal ob- 
servations by examining carefully through the area-railings whether 
light were perceptible through the cracks of the shutters; the kitch- 
en, in which Bill had promised to station himself, bearing evidence ir 
the name of “ front” of being overlooked by the street. But the mos 
careful eye could detect no straggling gleam betokening habitation,; 

“ Perhaps the poor boy may have fallen asleep in the cold ?” muse< 
Basil, drawing his cloak closer about his ears. “ If I were to try ant 
wake him ? A stone thrown against the shutter, perhaps, might rous< 

him up!” . 

But where was a stone to be found on the frozen pavement of De 
lahaye Street ? Though St. James’s Park, and all its gravel, lay with 
in distance of a stone’s throw, Basil might as well have required ai 
“ entire and perfect chrysolite” to fling at the shutter, as a single peh 
ble ! After a moment’s deliberation, he whistled loudly, in hopes that 
if dozing, this signal might reach the ear of the boy. 

In an instant, an answering whistle sounded shrilly from the oppe 
site side of the street, and a rough hand was placed upon his collar 
Ba^il started round to grapple with his antagonist, but stopped shor 
on noticing the dress of a policeman ! Ere he had time for explans 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA. — ABEDNEGO. 


20 


tion, two more ran up to the assistance of the first. 

“Hold fast. Bill!” cried one of the new comers, panting for 
l breath. 

“ Fve been watchin* on him this quarter of a hour,” cried the origi- 
I nal captor — “seeing as he’d a heye to the parlor winders o’ the old 
} Jew. He’s been trying skeleton-keys, and what not, at the door, 
i S’pose we gives the alarm indoors ? From his piping up, the chap 
‘ has may be got accomplices within ?” 

> “ Ay, ay ; — a put-up robbery”— 

| “ Jist the flashucut iv a Wist-ind burglar! 5 ’ cried the third police- 

; man ; all three keeping such a fast hold of the collar of Basil, as to 

1 leave him scarcely breath for explanations, which, even when made, 
; were utterly disregarded. 

? “ A mighty likely story !” exclaimed the constable from Great 

‘ George street, who had now come up, in answer to the summons of 
his subs. “ Gentlemen who come to inquire after the health of other 
gentlemen do not whist e to the foomau down the ary !” — 

2 “ Nor try skiliton.kays at the front doore — added the third po- 
jj 1 Iceman 

f “ Besides, the old fellow at this ’ere ’ouse hav’nt e’er a friend as 
, ever any body hear tell of, 5 ’ observed the original captor ; — “ and from 
jj his anxiousness to have his house watched, I’ve a notion there’s pro- 
, perty past common inside.” — 

| “ In that case, knock at the door, and give an alarm to have the 

i house searched,*’ said the constable, — “ B. 947, will assist in carry- 
j ing the fellow to the station-house.” 

;■ “ No assistance will be required,— I am quite willing to proceed 

there, ’’ said Annesiey, perfectly composed. “But before I go, I should 

* he glad to learn news of the old gentlemen who resides here, who is 
dangerously ill.” 

The men, who were holding him as tightly though Jerry Aber- 
l shavv or Dick Turpin were in their clutches, now inquired, with ex- 

• pressive gestures, whether he saw any green in their eyes : to which 
inquiry, Basil replying by an eager renewal of his request addressed 
to the constable, B. 947, who, apparently less experienced in his cal- 
ling than the rest, suggested that “ no great ’arm ud done by k£ep- 

I ing him fast till the door uppened.”— 

“ Do you suppose, sir, that I require to be obstructed in my dooty 
by the likes of you ?” cried the indignant constable. — “ I’m anseru- 
! ble to my super’ors,’ and that’s enough. Carry him off!” — said he, 

! addressing the “ infer’ors” with the dignity of a Dogberry — “ I’ll b b 
■ after you in a jiffy.” 

Annesiey was accordingly compelled to hurry off between the two 
policemen, without waiting to hear the result of the alarm at the door 
of A. O. He offered no resistance, — concluding that his explana- 
j tions at the station-house would produce his immediate release ; and 
was only vexed to perceive, on entering the crowded room, that from 
the number of charges claiming priority, he should be some time de- 
tained. — It was no such pleasant sight to contemplate the number of 
wretches taken insensible from the door-steps of gin shops ; or, though 
it still wanted an hour of midnight,- — the set of miserable beings, — 
more miserable from being less insensible, apprehended as wandering 
j homeless in the streets at that inclement season. Basil Annesiey 
i was far from needing Shakespeare’s admonishment — 

Take physic, Pomp i — 

Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel, 

in order to waken his sensibility to the wants of his fellow creatures : 
still, tdi that night, he had been scarcely aware of the nature and 
! amount of wretchedness infesting the streets of the Great Babylon. 

At length, his turn arrived ; and he was beginning to launch forth 
into a simple narrative ©f what had befallen him, when he was au- 
thoritatively desired to hold his tongue; and the depositions of the 
police assumed their due precedence. 

Let those who, after listening in either House to a dull debate, 
consisting of incoherent nothings, hemmed and hawed by one hono- 
rable member,— mumbled by a second, — mouthed by a third, — and 
executed in dumb show by the hands and lips of a fourth, (inaudible 
in the gallery,) — peruse with wondering eyes on the following morn 
ing in the flowing periods of The Times , a concentration of the wis- 
dom of Parliament, arranged under the several heads of “ The Duke 
oh-— — ;” “The Marquis of — - — “ The Honorable Member for 
Finsbury,” or the honorable memble member for no matter- what ; as 
a fair and true representation of the bald chat of the preceding night, 
if — conjecture the amazement of Basil on hearing a most consistent 
land plausible narrative of his exploits as a burglar !— His face was re- 
cognised by several present as familiar at Marlborough street; and 
one more general of information than the rest, facetiously reminded 
him of his two months at “ the Mill !” 

It was rather a relief than a vexation when an examination of his 
person was ordered, preparatory to his being locked up for the night ; 
) — knowing that, instead of the skeleton keys and jemmy imputed to 
him, the property in his greatcoat pockets would confirm the identity 
he had asserted. When, however, the initials on his handkerchief, 
and the name inscribed in a pocket book containing his letters and 
memoranda, had sufficed, as he fondly imagined, to prove the delin- 
quent. of Brixton Mill to be an officer of the Guards, of honorable re- 
putation, and he wa# anticipating apologies from the Inspector, new 


grounds of suspicion presented themselves. The fellow who taxed 
his face with having been “up a mattero o’ twenty times at Mobbro’ 
street,” suggested that the“soortoo might have been prigged” from 
the rightful owner, and worn with all his property, in order to estab- 
lish an alias for the thief ! 

“ If you wiil send a messenger to the Guards’ Club, and request 
Captain Blericowe, whose cab is waiting there, either to drive hither 
and identify me, or despatch one of my brother officers for that pur- 
po e, or even his own servant who accompanied me an hour ago to 
Delahaye street, you will perceive that these men have deposed false- 
ly, or rather to thrice as much as the truth !” —said Basil, in a tone 
that startled the benumbed faculties of the stultified Inspector; and 
after some further difeussion among the deponents, he was locked up 
to abide the result of the message. 

Three quarters of an hour did poor Annesiey await the return of 
the policeman despatched to St. James’s street ; in a room reeking 
with the vapors of gin and tobacco, emitted by three ragged human 
beings who lay huddled together, two upon a flock bed in the corner 
of the strong room ; the third upon the floor, and breathing so hard 
and irregularly, as to betoken an apopletic seizure rather than mere 
drunkenness. It v^as in vain he remonstrated against being placed 
in collision with these outcasts. The charge of false witnessing he 
had made against the police force, exposed him to the utmost rigor 
of what is called the Law. 

At length, when heated and chafed almost to frenzy by this untime- 
ly incarce ation and revolting companionship, the grating lock inti- 
mated that his probation was at an end ; and he w r as summoned back 
into the police room,— now hotter than ever, and crowded with new 
committals. 

Tne first objects that struck him, (their Chestcrheld wrappers and 
laughing faces affording a singular contrast to the uniforms of the 
policemen and filthy tatters of the prisoners,) were Maitland and 
Wiibcrton, arm in arm, who, having issued from the supper table into 
the frosty air on Annesley’s summons, were just sufficiently affected 
bj' the cigars and brandy and water they had taken at starting, to 
enjoy beyond measure the part they proposed to play. Though satis- 
ed by Basil’s message of the nature of his scrape, they pretended, on 
reaching the station house, to believe themselves summoned at the 
impudent instigation of an imposter ; and the consequence was that, 
on emerging from the lock up room, the prisoner found himself treat- 
ed quite as cavalierly as before. 

“ Never saw the fellow in my Hie !” stammered Wiibcrton, who, 
more elated than his companion, was delighted at the prospect of the 
spree proposed by John Maitland, by way of retaliat ion on Basil’s pre- 
tended engagement. “ Some drunken dog cf — of a pickpocket, — 
who has made fr — free with our name !”— 

“ It is deuced hard that a gentleman should be disturbed from his 
supper on such absurd pretences !’’ added Maitland, assuming an air 
of drunken indignation.— -And Annesiey was about to be removed to 
a cell for the remainder of the night, when something in the rollick- 
ing air and exulting tone of the two witnesses, so far attracted the 
notice of the experienced Inspector, that when Basil, appealing to 
him in the gentlemanly tone which rarely fails of effect, entreated 
that the servant or servants who had driven down with the two gentle- 
men to the Station might be called in, he readily complied. But before 
Maitland’s tiger had time to make his appearance, whose testimony 
must put an end to the mystery, his master had begun to address 
Annesiey by the name of “ old feilow !” and to treat the matter as a 
joke. 

The result wras the instant release of the supposed burglar. Noth, 
ing had been. been found upon him confirmatory of the deposition of 
B. 947, w'ho had already sneaked off in anticipation of being given 
in charge in his turn -and by way of conciliating the ex prisoner, 
who, ere he fallowed his jocose friends out of the station-house, in- 
timated his intention of lodginga complaint with the magistrates on 
the morrow, the Inspector acquainted him that, unable to obtain in- 
gress to the house in Delahaye street, and seriously alarmed for the 
safety of its inmate, the policemen had attempted to force the door^s — 
the noise of which brought down the old man from his attic, pistols 
in hand, to certify his own safety. 

“ Nevertheless,” added the Inspector, “ the constable, who persuad- 
ed him to a parley with the chain up, states that the old gentlemen 
was in such a state of debiiity that his voice was scarcely audible ; — 
which account, sir, ought certainly to have induced more belief than 
I accorded to the motive induced for visiting him at so strange an 
hour.” 

On his release from the tyranny of the police, Basil determined to 
return instantly to Delahaye street ; being now certain that the little 
sweeper had proved false to his charge, and that the miserable old man 
was leit alone. 

Just as he was quitting the door of the station-house, resisting the 
officious offers of a raggamuffin loitering near the door to run and 
fetch him a cab, — a strange figure appealed at the corner of the 
street ; which, but for its venturing so near the head quarters of the 
law, might easily have been mistaken for one of the calling to which 
Basil had just escaped the imputation of belonging. But the moon 
shone too^brightly through the clear atmosphere, to admit of any de 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA. — ABEDNEGO. 


si 


ception in the eyes of Annesley ; who instantly discerned in that un- 
sightly form, the individual to whose aid he was hastening, as per- 
haps on a bed of death ! 

44 What, in God’s name, sir, has tempted you out in your present 
state on such a night !” — cried Basil, eagerly accosting him. 

But the answer was wholly unintelligible. Abednego leaned 
heavily against the area-railings of an adjoining house, as if over- 
come by his feelings or his infirmities, and groaned aloud. 

44 Fetch a coach !” cried Basil to the fellow who had been impor- 
tuninghirn, — perceiving that, short as was the distance to Lh-lahaye 
street, there was much doubt whether the strength of the sick man 
would enable hirfl to retrace his steps ; — and while listening to the 
broken gasps, half invective, half endearment, in which Abednego 
attempted to express anger at his young friend’s officiousness, and in- 
dignation at the dilemma into which it had betrayed him, a vehicle 
rattled up; — and the manner in which the invalid, after being lifted 
in, sunk breathless into a corner, convinced Basil Annesley that his 
previous anxieties were not exaggerated. 

44 It is as much as his life is worth to have encountered the night air 
on such a night!” burst involuntarily from his lips, as he compared 
the warm interest entertained in his behalf by the eccentric old Jew, 
with the desertion of his gay associates ; — and a hoarse ejaculation 
of 44 my life !” which escaped the lips of his companion, was the only 
intelligible sound that reached the ear of Basil till they stopped before 
the door in Delahaye street. 

“ You must allow me to assist you up stairs,” said Basil, as the 
coachman held open the coach door, and Abednego taking a pass- 
key from his waistcoat pocket, prepared to open his own. — 

44 No, no !” muttered the old man, — ” I tell you no ! — Who is to 
put the chain up after you, when you quit the house?” — 

But the effort he had made for this explanation proved too much 
for him ; and on reaching his door, he tottered and would have fal- 
len, while attempting to place the key in the lock, had not Annes- 
ley started forward and supported him in his arms. A low moaning 
now escaped his lips ; and Annesley having taken the key from his 
icy hand, and pushed open with his foot the slowly yielded door, 
carried him into the hail, and placed him on a bench. — After return- 
ing to pay and dismiss the coachman, he carefully closed the street 
door ; and even so far conceded to the habits of Abednego as to bar 
it and put up the chain, ere he snatched with one hand the filthy iron 
lamp which the Jew had left burning on the pavement of the hall, 
on his departure for the station-house, and offered his arm to A. O., 
who was gradually reviving. 

44 Let me see you up stairs, sir,” said Basil. 44 It is useless declin- 
ing my assistance. The night is half over, and since I know you to 
be alone in the house, I swear to you that I will not quit it before 
morning !” 

The suffering man seemed fully aware of his incompetency under 
the influence of growing indisposition to dispute the point with his 
young companion ; for, instead of offering further resistance, he ac- 
cepted the proffered arm of Basil, and attempted to ascend the 
stairs. The task, however, was by no means easy. Hi3 respiration 
was all but impeded by the increased swelling and inflammation of 
his throat : and on attaining the second landing, he clung with both 
hands to the arm of Annesley, and panted for breath. 

It was not till after the laps of some minutes that 'hey were able to 
attain the attic, the door of which was locked, — from habit more 
than as a security, since there was no other human being in the house. 

They entered the room. Basil saw with concern that there was 
not a vestige of fire ; and that his suffering companion had risen from 
his miserable bed to answer the summons of the police. From the 
iron lamp he carried, young Annesley hastily lighted a candle that 
stood on the table, Which, in strange contradiction to the habits of 
Abednego, proved to be of wax, 

44 Give me the lamp !” faltered the old man, rising from the bergere 
into which he had sunk exhausted on entering. 44 1 have wood and 
shavings in the other room. Since you choose to abide with me, I 
suppose I must kindle a fire.” 

44 Not on my account, sir !” said Basil, eagerly; but on reflecting 
that the sentiment of hospitality might be the only means of induc- 
ing the old gentleman to bestow upon himself a necessary indulgence, 
he desisted: and Abednego tottered, grumbling, into the adjoining 
chamber. Thus left alone, on casting his eyes around him upon that 
wretched room, as much a place of penance as the police cell he had 
quitted, Basil noticed that, on a low table beside the flock bed, lay 
the book borrowed that morning by his host, — and beside it, a large 
crucifix of Berlin iron, — and a folded paper J — A crucifix ! — Ttie 
world then, and his own suspicions, had decided wrongfully ? — 
Abednego the Money-lender was only in name and practices a Jew ! 

While pondering upon this startling discovery, a heavy fall in the 
adjoining closet attacted Basil’s attention ; and though believing it 
to proceed only from a log of the wood mentioned by his singular 
host he hurried to his assistance. Either A. O. had entangled his 
feet in the long wrapper in which he had enveloped himself to con- 
front the night air, or had fallen from weakness; — for there he 
lay, stretched upon the heap of ming’ed coals, cinders, and fragments 
of old wood, that encumbered one corner of the room ! 


The old man had struck himself too in the fall ; for on lifting him 
up, Basil perceived, by the light of the lamp, (which, though over- 
turned on the floor, was not extinguished,) that blood was gushing 
from his lips. — Lifting him hastily in his arms, he bore him like a 
child into the adjoining attic, and placed him on the bed ; — Abednego 
groaning heavily at intervals, — either from illness, or the disastrous 
effects of his accident. 

His host thus manifestly disabled, Basil felt entitled to bestir him- 
self according to Lis own inventions. He was there alone, in the 
dead of the night, without aid or comfort, in sole charge, of a sick or 
dying man. It wasno moment for scruples or nicety. Throwing off 
his greatcoat, and hastily gathering from the heap in the adjoining 
room materials for a fire, he soon produced a blaze in the rusty old 
grate, which diffused some degree of cheerfulness, and promised 
gradually to diffuse warmth through the desolate apartment. An old 
kettle stood within the lender ; but as it proved empty, Bj.sil proceed- 
ed to a stone water jug that stood m the corner of the room to re- 
plenish it. The water in the pitcher was frozen ! — In order to break 
the ice, which resisted his hand, Basil took up a faggot stick lying 
near it on the floor. The crash caused by the fracture seemed to 
rouse the faculties of Abednego, who instantly woke as from a suport. 

44 What mischief are you doing there ?’’ gasped he, evidently only 
partially sensible. 41 What have you broken ? — I have not kept a 
piece of crockery entire since you began to wait upon me ! — And 
how dare you light that monstrous fire ? — Fool! — what have I to 
roast here besides your own wretched limbs, that you thus waste my 
fuel?” 

From the little Basil Annesley could gather of this apostrophe, ut- 
tered in a hoarse whisper, he saw that Abednego’s head was wander- 
ing with fever, and that he mistook him for the little sweeper. 

Without attempting to undeceive him, he persisted in bis self-im- 
posed task ; — filled the kettle, set it on the fire, and having found 
untouched the packet of dried lime flowers he had despatched from; 
the chemist’s for an infusion, prepared a drink for the siek man, 
such as he remembered to have been administered to himself at 
Heidelberg, by the mother of Esther. 

There was some difficulty in finding a cup in which to offer it to 
Abednego. As a last resource, Basil took from a shelf behind him 
what appeared to be a bronze ornament, which afterwards proved to 
be an antique silver goblet, a chef d c&uvre of one of the old chasers 
of Lombardy ! 

The invalid drank and seemed comforted. His moans became less 
heavy. After a time he opened his eyes, and breathed as though the 
oppression of his chest were in some degree relieved. By degrees, 
and before he altogether regained his consciousness, Basil removed 
his outer garments, and having placed them under his pillow as a 
prop to his head, covered him closely up with the quilt of his wretch- 
ed pallet. With a second cup of the hot infusion, he now mixed 
some antimony as prescribed by the chemist he had consulted ; and 
the invalid having again, almost mechanically, swallowed the sooth- 
ing infusion, Basil left it to exercise its effect, and, wearied by his un- 
accustomed exertions, flung himself into the old bergere before the 
fireplace for rest and reflection. 

The strangeness of his own situation afforded, of course, the first 
subject of his cogitations ! There was he, who indignantly rebutted 
as an imputation, the charge of intimacy with A. 0., brought against 
him at Lady Maitland’s by Blencowe and his set, — actually estab- 
lished as sick nurse beside his bed, in a filthy garret ; — performing for 
him menial offices which he would have hesitated to execute for per- 
sons having claims upon his kindneis ! 

Only a few nights before, his mother had refused to accept offices 
far less humiliating from him, in behalf of an old and faithful servant ; 
and now, iie was attending, sole servitor, on t.he dying bed of a stran- 
ger, — whose very existence, a little month before, had been utterly 
unknown to him ! 

But the strangest of ali these incongruities was, that for the life' 
and soul of him, he could not bring hirnself to regard Abednego Osa- 
lez as a stranger ! Some mysterious tie appeared to unite them.— 
Though the common but most holy tie of fellow-creatureship, includ- 
ing even the Money- lender under the Biblical designation of 44 neigh- 
bor,” ought to have sufficed as a motive for the exertions of the 
young Samaritan, so as to need no further adducement, Basil Annesley, 
as he contemplated the smoky fireplace, did not conceal from himself 
that tfe felt as if seated beside the hearth of one with whom he had 
been long accustomed to break bread, and take counsel. And yet, 
the man who lay breathing heavy and unconscious on that wretched 
pallet, was one whose vocation and habits were hateful to the gene- 
rous mind of the young soldier ! Though the vigorous language and 
force of intellect of Abednego had invested the calling of the Money- 
lender with a new character in the eyes of Basil,— though the keen- 
ness of his soul and greatness of his speculations had interposed a 
sort of veil over the littleness of his daily doings, and the detestable 
nature of his usu’-y, — young Annesley did not attempt to disguise 
from himstfff that the man who contemplated with such farsighted 
philosophy the value and social influence of money, was in practice a 
pettifogging miser 1— Still, with all the inconsistency and odiousnesi 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA. — ABEDNEGO. 


22 


of his pursuits, Basil was conscious of involuntary deference towards 
the proprietor of that filthy garret ! — 

“ The power of thought, — the magic of the mind,” 

the energy of soul of one so immeasurably superior to his own posi- 
tion, and so strangely master of the destines of others, threw a sort of 
halo round the gloom of the place. It was such wilful, wayward, 
self-denying misery ! — There was such a force of will, such a conster- 
nation of self-infliction in the privations of the starving millionaire , — 
that he felt as if contemplating De Ranee in the cells of La Trappe, 
or Charles V. in those of St. Quintin, rather than a vulgar miser un- 
dergoing his wilful Prometheanism ? While gazing on those denuded 
walls, if it were possible to abhor, it was not easy to despise the in- 
mate of that iron chest of unavailing treasure ! 

His greatest source of annoyance, now that he was satisfied of 
having afforded the best succor in his power to the physical ailments 
of the sick man, arose from the certainty of having exposed himself 
to the unsparing raillery of his brother officers. Devoid as they were 
of entertainment at that season of the year, they would not fail to 
discuss among themselves his solitary visit to the theatre, after the 
pretext of an engagement ; his having driven in Blencowe’s cab to 
what would otherwise have passed for some rendezvous, but what was 
now discovered to be a midnight visit to A, O. ; — a visit, moreover, so 
unauthorised, as to have caused him to be taken up as a burgler, and 
exposed him to the chance of a night in the station house ! 

It was not to be expected that such men as Wilberton and Mait- 
land would deal leniently with these discoveries ; and old Carrington 
was now too stale as a butt, not to impart due value to an adventure 
which exposed young Annesley for ever and a day to the bantering of 
those who had already bo moved his cholcr by qualifying him as the 
arm-in-arm companion of the Money-lender! — 

In order to escape the annoyance of his anticipations on this pro- 
voking subject, Basil proceeded to take from the table, the onfy book 
that naked room afforded for his amusement : — even the volume of 
Hollar which Abednego had so strangely chosen as the consolation of 
his hours of sickness ! Ashe removed it stealthily from the table, in 
order not to waken the sick man from his unquiet slumbers, he inad- 
vertently brushed down the paper lying beside it, and stooped to re- 
store it to the table. In the displacement something fell out. On 
searching upon the floor, it proved to be a lock of hair ; — a long, long 
tress, coil within coil, — which it was impossible not to recognise as that 
of a woman, — and difficult not to surmise as that of a woman young 
and lovely : — so silken was its textures, — so rich its hue ! 

Without the smallest intention of prjing into the household secrets 
of his host, Basil could not replace it in the paper without discerning 
this. He even noticed the peculiar color of the hair. It was a rare 
tint; yet long familiar to his eyes as that of a tress, all but similar, 
which he carried in his pocket book, and which had been recently un- 
folded before him during the insolent examination at the police office : 
— his mother’s hair ! — not silvered as now by the hand of time and 
influence of care ; — but rich and glossy as during her sunny youth. — 
Basil regarded this lock, which he had obtained as a gift from Dor- 
cas without his mother’s knowledge, as the most precious treasure 
in his possession. 

Irresistibly impelled to compare it with the tress he had now dis- 
covered in the possession of the Money-lender, he drew forth his 
pocket-book, abstracted it from the paper, and placed them side by 
side. — Not the variation of a hair in the length, — not the difference 
of a shade in their hue ! — They were one and the same ! — The most 
indifferent observer would have decided, as Basil was for a moment 
inclined to decide, that they had been shred from the same beloved 
head ! 

But could this be ? — What analogy, — what connection could exist, 
or could ever have existed, between them ? — The Money-lender of 
Greek street, Soho, and the widow of Sir Bernard Annesley ! — The 

haughty daughter of the proudest of ambassadors, — Lord L .and 

the thrifty, artful usurer, — the degraded, — the notorious, — the infa- 
mous, A. O. ! 

CHAPTER X. 

Scarcely less sad than the scene in which young Annesley was 
officiating, was the one in which, at the same moment, his mother 
was acting a part equally humane, in her dreary abode at Barling- 
ham Grange. 

The old gardner was no more. The burst of feeling of which Basil 
had been a spectator, proved to have been the last effort of expiring 
nature ; and it was the lady to whom from her childhood he had 
been devoted, who closed the glassy eyes of the old man, and placed 
the watch-lights beside the dead. Lady Annesley was, perhaps, the 
inmate of the Grange best qualified for that solemn duty. Her mind, 
Tendered stern by habitual contact with care, was now of a Consist- 
ency to encounter without trembling all or any of those earnest du- 
ties of life, from which the gentle hearts and hands of her sex shrink 
with terror, before either the one or the other have been wrung under 
the influence of anguish or remorse ! 

Like one moving in her sleep, she has breathed in the ears of old 
Nicholas the prayers appointed by the Church for a dying bed ; and 
ii this effort were perhaps instigated by reluctance to expose the 


revelations of his infirm intellect to the ears of a stranger, it was no 
such apprehension that induced her to assist the sobbing Dorcas in 
straightening his limbs for the grave, ere consigned by the proper 
attendants to his last home. Once placed in his coffin, she quitted 
the room; — quitted it with a heavy sigh, — an in-breathed prayer! — ■ 
Early sorrows had been bitterly renewed by her trying attendance 
on the old man, who had unconsciously wounded her to the quick 
by his incoherent ravings ; — and above all, by the hazard to which 
they had exposed her of betrayal to the child of her heart. But he 
was now at rest. Both had done their duty. The gray-headed man 
was released from his earthly penance; — it was she alone who re- 
mained to suffer and to atone ! 

Every person whose feelings have been excited by the perform- 
ance of gome severe and engrossing duty, must have been conscious 
of a strange vacuity of feeling when the influence of that painful ten- 
sion is at an end. Like a sufferer whose infirm or shaitered limb 
has been removed by the surgeon, undefinable sensations of uneasi- 
ness seem to possess its vacant place. So harassed had been Lady 
Annesley during the continuance of the gardner’s illness, and the 
perpetual hazards to which it exposed her, that, on the afternoon of 
the day in which he was laid in the grave, when the old house was 
restored to its usual mournful quietude, and the two women in their 
mourning suits kept moving silently and sadly about her, she could 
not settle to her customary occupations. Involuntarily, she re- 
entered the room which had been appropriated to the use of the de- 
ceased ; — the threshold of which she had never crossed of late save 
under the influence of awe and remorse. All was restored to its usual 
form. The winter sun was shining through the open casement ; and 
driven baek by the piercing atmosphere thus admitted, she had no 
resource but her own warm sitting-room, and the solace of her books 
and desk. 

Nothing more common than for people of the world, on hearing 
some compulsory recluse complain of the cheerlessness of solitude, 
to exclaim, — “ But why not read to amuse yourself ?” in pursuance 
©f the common-place encomiums of “ the sunshine of the mind pro- 
duced by study,” which our copy-book morality inflicts upon the use 
of schools. But *the notion of reading for amusement, entertained 
by such people, consists in a first-class subscription to a fashionable 
library, ensuring the earliest perusal of popular works, — new novels, 
brilliant periodicals, — holding up to the eye, as in a mirror, a reflec- 
tion of the progress of civilization, and a picture of the manners and 
prosperities of the day. 

Lady Annesley’s book-case, on the contrary, contained only old 
editions of the works of past centuries ; philosophy rendered obsolete 
by modern improvement ; and theology purporting to split so fine the 
straws of doctrinal casuistry, as to reduce them to chaff. The few 
sterling books she possessed, the bosom comforters to which we turn 
in sickness and sorrow, had been her sole companions for twenty 
lonely years ; and with all one’s partiality for a favorite writer, it is 
not more impossible for the dried leaves of the rose to retain the hue 
and fragrance of the living flower, than for the hundreth perusal to 
yield the charm of the first. It may indeed, perhaps, when volunta- 
rily culled from the shelves of a voluminous library. But it is only 
the uninformed and unimaginative mind of the peasant that can de- 
rive amusement, Sunday after Sunday, throughout a long life, from 
his solitary volume of the “ Pilgrim’s Progress.” 

Lady Annesley had been more than once forced to admit to her- 
self, that her little library had ceased to charm ; and if she pined 
after anything in her seclusion, it was for the charm of new books 
to create a new order of ideas, or a happier combination of the old. — 
But on that cheerless afternoon, she felt as if those ancient compan- 
ions of her sorrow might perhaps renew their charm ; and in accord- 
ance with the promptings of the solemn scene of the morning, in the 
little village church wherein she had seen ashes reconsigned to ashes, 
and dust to dust, she proceeded to her book- shelf to take down her 
favorite Holbein, with its well-remembered philosophical interleav- 
ings. — It was gone! — The book was included in a set of six volumes 
of favorite works — The Essays of Montaigne, and George Herbert’s 
Manual — all in the same antique building. Of these, five alone re- 
mained ; — the copy of Hollar was no longer there ! 

Lady Annesley felt surprised and angry. So undisturbed was the 
tenor of her life, that no person but herself and her two waiting- 
women ever crossed the threshold of that chamber ; of whom, Han- 
nah could not read or write, while Dorcas was one of those fortunate 
individuals who find better companionship in the seam they are sew- 
ing, than the choicest chef-d'ceuvre of genius. — Still, either the one 
or the other might have been tempted by the striking designs of the 
book, to remove it from the room for more leisurely inspectien. She 
rang and inquired. Neither of them had ever noticed either the ex- 
istence or the disappearance of the book ! She now demanded 
whether, during her attendance on the gardner, any stranger -had 
been admitted into the room. 

“No person whatever !’’ was the reply. 

“ Most strange and most vexatious !” was her rejoinder; — adding, 
in the depths of her heart, — “ So few as are the relics I retain of 
those days, — so few and so precious, — ill could I afford to part 
with this /’» 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA ABEDNEGO. 


m 


“ It was perhaps Master Basil who borrowed the book ?” suggested 
Dorcas, struck with a brilliant idea. 44 The morning he was forced 
to remain here, after your ladyship’s fainting fit, he was hours mop- 
ing alone here, in the morning room. Perhaps he had begun to read 
it, and took it with him to finish on the road ?” 

Lady Annesley expressed a contrary conviction, and dismissed her 
attendant. Yet so probable was the surmise, that the moment she 
was alone again, she seized a pen, and addressed an inquiry on the 
subject to her son. She had intended deferring till the morrow in- 
telligence of the decease of poor ©Id Nicholas ; but so eager was her 
desire to assure herself of the fate of her book, that she lost not a 
moment. 

Nothing could be more embarrassing than to address Basil ©n the 
subject of their old servant’s demise; for she had ventured no subse- 
quent explanation with her son after the terrible scene in which they 
had borne a part ; and she was consequently uncertain whether sus- 
picions had been excited on the part of Basil, or whether he attributed 
the terrible revelations of the gardner solely to aberration of in- 
tellect. 

The moment, however, that her mind became possessed by anxiety 
concerning her beloved volume, she lost sight of these considera- 
tions ; and after narrating to him, with simple succinctness, the 
death and burial of one who, she said, “had been to her as a friend 
when her own kith and kin had deserted her — a good, faithful, and 
submissive servant, in days of adversity as in days more prosper- 
ous,” — she proceeded to inquire whether he could give her any 
tidings of the missing book. 

44 You are my only son, Basil,” wrote Lady Annesley ; “ nay, the 
estrangement and prosperity of your sister render you my only heir. 
Yet a few years, and the little I possess will be your own. Even 
now, I am not, I trust, sparing in administering to your comfort, — or 
prodigal in the indulgence of my own. I cannot therefore think, 
Basil, — I would willingly not believe, — that you have surreptitiously 
abstracted from my house an object which you know I prize. How 
much I prize it, you are not able to conjecture. 1 shall go down to 
my grave, and neither you nor others will ever learn how dear — yet 
how cruel — are the recollections with which that relic is connected. 
In my solitude here, I live but in the past. That which is gone — 
those who are gone, encompass me with an atmosphere holy and pre- 
cious as themselves. — The Hope that abideth in you — the Memory 
that abideth in them , — hath a joy which is not of this world. I know 
not what I write; the loss of this book has disordered me ! — It seems 
as if one of the unrestorable treasures of past affection were wrested 
from me forever ! 

“ No delay, Basil, I entreat! Write to me, if you have any com- 
munication to make touching the object in question. Fear no re- 
proaches on my part, if it should prove that your hands indeed re- 
moved it from my house. Too happy shall I be to welcome it back 
again, to hazard a single accusing word !” 

Such was the letter despatched from Barlington Grange ! — Such 
the letter which Basil Annesley drew from his pocket beside a decent 
camp-bed established in the attic of A. O,, on the fifth morning after 
the critical night of his disorder. 

So imminent had appeared the danger of the Money-lender on the 
morrow of his vigils, that young Annesley — doubly alarmed by the 
responsibility devolving on himself should the death of a man so 
richly endowed occur under his solitary guardianship and circum- 
stances so suspicious, — had despatched the sweeper for the aid of his 
regimental surgeon ; through whose means, he had subsequently pro- 
cured a proper attendant, and a few of the necessaries of life. 

Abednego was now too heavily oppressed by disease to take heed 
of the arrival of strangers or bedding in his attic ; and all that Basil 
could do in excuse for their introduction into the treasury of treasu- 
ries, should the old man survive to question his proceedings, was to 
seal up the doors of the different rooms and the invaluable bureau, 
and give up a daily portion of his time to the superintendence of the 
establishment. 

Abednego was, however, more cognizant than he surmised, of 
what was passing around him. He was aware of his own danger ; 
aware of the urgent necessity for the precautions taken ; and the 
nurse proving a decent, dull woman, content to sit quiet in view 
whenever not employed in serving him, he was better satisfied she 
should be there, than that the house should be surrendered to the 
discretion of Bill the sweeper. 

Still, Basil had little idea how often, during his absence, the sufferer 
raised his head from his pillow, to inquire of the woman in attendance 
the hour of the day, — the length of time that had elapsed since the 
young man’s departure, — and w T hat promise he had given of return. 
He had little idea how completely he imparted light and life to that 
sinking frame ! — He could imagine, of coure, that his disinterested 
services had proved acceptable to the infirm Money-lender. He 
knew that Abednego must be aware how solicitude in his behalf had 
exposed him to one of the most disagreeable dilemmas it had ever 
been his luck to encounter ; and though such was> the state of weak- 
ness consequent on the yielding of the quinsy, that they had as yet 
held no conversation on the subject, young Annesley naturally con- 
ceived the sufferer to be gratefully and kindly disposed. It was 


enough for him, however, that so whimsical a being had not seen fit 
to resent his interference ; and he looked forward to the convales- 
cence of the invalid rather as a relief to himself from a painful and 
responsible attendance, than from any desire to receive his thanks or 
accord explanations in return. 

The receipt of Lady Annesley’s letter started him into other feel- 
ings. It was urgent that he should regain possession of the book, 
and lose no time in restoring it to his mother. But how was this to 
be accomplished ? It had disappeared from the table, as well as tho 
crucifix and paper containing the lock of hair; and the nurse, who 
seldom or never quitted the room, declared that she knew nothing of 
it. That the invalid, still scarcely able to lift his head from his pil- 
low, should have removed it, appeared improbable ; and Abednego 
was so weak, and, above all, so peevish from the effects of illness, 
that Basil had scarcely courage to molest him with inquiries. 

“ If he only surmised,” thought young Annesley, as he sat con- 
templating the embarrassments of the case, 44 how mysterious a re- 
semblance exists between her hair for whose pleasure I require the 
book, and the lock he seems to treasure with such wild devotion, he 
would forgive my importunity.” 

On entering the room on the morning he received the letter, Basil 
accosted the invalid with his usual inquiries concerning his night’s 
rest, and the visit of the surgeon. 

44 Your doctor is to come no more,” said Abednego faintly. 44 1 
paid and dismissed him last night. It was only to satisfy you , I bore 
with him, as I now bear with the old woman dozing yonder in my 
easy chair. But for her being here, how do I know that you would 
not come tormenting me again at midnight, to light my fire anj snuff 
my candle ?” 

“ By all this, sir, I perceive that you feel much better ! It is only 
the man in health who quarrels with his physician. As to the nurse, 
you will admit her to be a safer guardian for you than a beggar from 
the street ?” added Basil, in a lower voice. 

44 That is as it may prove !” retorted Abednego, gruffly. 44 In the 
time of the Plague, Defoe informs us, that such nurses used to twist 
the windpipes of their patients. Thank Heaven, I am now strong 
enough to take care of my own ! However, till I can make my fire, 
and boil my kettle, she is welcome to remain. She 4 finds herself f 
as such people call it ; and gives me less trouble than I give her. 
Nor is there much here,” he continued, glancing round the naked 
walls, 44 to attract pilfering fingers.” 

44 There were things here,” Basil began, — perceiving that the nurse 
was really asleep, under the influence of a cracking fire on a frosty 
day, — 44 there were objects here, at the commencement of your illness, 
which I see no longer ; and the disappearance of which makes me 
somewhat uneasy.” 

44 How mean you ?” — cried Abednego, raising himself on his elbow, 
and pushing aside the certains to peer out upon the bureau, which 
contained property to the amount of thousands upon thousands ! — 

44 No need to look so far, or so anxiously !” observed Basil. 44 The 
things I speak of are of no such urgent value, — save perhaps to you 
and myself : — an iron crucifix, a timeworn book” — 

44 And what do you suppose to have become of them, pray?” cried 
Abednego, sharply, — letting fall the curtain, and sinking back again 
on his pillow. 

44 1 w T as in hopes, sir, you might be able to inform me.” 

44 And if I were — are you so miserly w r ith your property, that you 
cannot trust me with an old book ?” 

44 1 would trust you with any property belonging to myself; — the 
care you take of your own, satisfies me that mine would run no dan- 
ger of being mislaid while in your keeping. Unluckily I have little 
either to lend or to give ; so that you are unlikely to be much the 
better for my confidence.” 

44 But when I tell you that, valueless as it may seem to you , I hold 
to that book — ” 

44 1 should still be under the necessity of — ” 

44 When I tell you,” persisted Abednego, not heeding his interrup- 
tion, 44 that it is my comfort by day and by night, — that in the an- 
guish of my disease, it lay upon my bosom, and soothed its throb- 
bings, — that, in the darkness of my despair, it shed light and peace 
around me, as from the wings of an angel — ” 

Basil began to entertain an opinion that the senses of the invalid 
were again wandering ! 

44 When I swear to you, that while treasured here, — here, beneath 
my pillow — here, side by side with the emblem of eternal redemp- 
tion, — dear to me as to yourself, although the lying world opprobri- 
ate me by the name of Jew, — it has yielded me more comfort than 
the Cross of Faith, with all its promises of heaven ; — do you still 
desire to take it from me ? — No, no ! Basil, leave it, — leave it, — un- 
less you wish to see me sink again into the bruised and breathless 
mummy to which I w'as reduced when you snatched me from the 
grave !” 

Basil Annesley was silent. To dispute with him on a point that 
seemed so trifling, at a moment thus critical, seemed an act of cru- 
elty ; yet to disappoint the anxious expectations of Lady Annesley, 
was a deed yet more unpardonable. 

44 1 told you, sir,” said he, in a hesitating tone, and after a long 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA. — AREDNEGO. 


24 


pause, 44 that the look was not my own, and that I had abstracted 
ft from home without the concurrence of my mother. 5 ’ 

44 Well ?” — demanded Abednego, again drawing aside the curtains 
and fixing his piercing eyes upon those of his visiter. 

44 fehe has demanded it back again. She is greatly displeased at 
my having removed it from Barlirigham.” 

“Send her down the last new novel from FXookham’s!” muttered 
A. O., with bitter scorn the lady will doubtless consider it a 
profitable exchange !” 

44 You are too presumptuous, sir, in deciding upon the tastes and 
feelings of a perfect stranger, 5 ’ retorted Basil, with spirit. “You 
little know the woman you pretend to judge!— Never in my dajs 
did I see a novel in the hand of my mother ! Her studies are severe 
as her conduct is exemplary. 5 ’ 

44 A saint, eh ? — Then send her a bale of sermons from Hatchard’s ! 
What matter under what form the weak nature of woman accepts its 
subjugating influence? Novels,--- poems, — tracts — 55 

44 In one word, 5 ’ said Basil, drawing Lady Annesley’s letter from 
his pocket, “read, and judge for yourself, whether a woman, so ex- 
alted in heart and mind as the writer of this, is likely to accept any 
exchange for the book she prizes !” 

On seeing his mother’s sacred handwriting pa?s into the withered 
hands of Abednego, Bisil almost repented the concession he had 
made. It was degrading a letter of hers to expose it to the eyes of a 
Money-lender ! — i'he deed, however, was done ! 

In order to give time to A. O., in his weak condition, for the peru- 
sal of the letter, Brsil Annesley walked gently to ihe window so as 
not to rouse the nurse from her doze. There was nothing very inte. 
resting’Sn the look out. A mass of icicles, appended to the leaden 
water pipe of the oppQsite attic, was the most interesting object he 
found to contemplate. 

At the close of a few minutes, he returned to the bedside, in- 
tending to resume his conversation with Abednego ; but all was stdl 
as the grave ! — No movement — not a sound ! — T he old man uttered 
not a word, and made no attempt to give back the letter. At last, 
in a gentle voice of expos’ ulation, Basil addressed him, and addressed 
him in vain ! 

Young Annesley now drew aside the curtains of the bed ; and 
found that no # vestige of its inmate was perceptible. Abednego had 
gathered up the bedclothes over his head. Like some mourner of 
Scriptural times, he had covered his face with his garment, and was 
weeping bitterly. 

Agitated, in his turn, by this unaccountable emotion, Basil Annes- 
ley was beginning to feel intolerably bewildered by the baffling mys- 
teries that seemed to involve the faial volume, his removal of which 
from Barlingham had been t ie cause of such general disturbance. 

44 For the love of Heaven, sir 1” cried he, “ explain all this ! — Ex- 
plain the interest which you and every one else appears to attach to 
that accursed book, — the source of distress to a l wkh whom I am 
concerned !” 

Still, Abednego answered not a syllable. By the movements of 
the clothes in which he had enveloped himself, Basil could alone in- 
fer the struggles of his emotion. 

“I beseech you, sir,” cried the young man, after a second pause, 
“if you entertain the least kindnees for me, — if you feel towards me 
a thousandth part of the goodwill which has prompted my own exer- 
tions in your behalf,— tell me the meaning of your tears. They had 
not been wrung out of such a soul as yours, save by some all power- 
ful interest. You are not woman-hearted, to weep for wantonness, 
or from the weakness of mere exhaustion.— Tell me — 5 ’ 

44 1 can tell you nothing, 5 ’ murmured Abednego, uncovering his 
face, and showing the letter of Lady Annesley crushed in his hand 
by the grasp of uncontrollable passion, — 44 save that this letter has 
roused emotions dormant for years. I had not thought, — I had not 
dreamed, — that this woman had retired from the world to ponder 
over ffelings such as these!” — and again, with trembling hand, he 
grasped the letter. — 44 1 believed her cold and callous as she was once 
worldly ! — 1 believed, — but no matter !— These few words have 
wrung a dew out of the stony depths of my heart, of which I be- 
lieved the fountains to be long dried up ! — Thanks, Basil Annesley, — 
this is not the first benefit you have bestowed upon me ! — Thanks! 
Here, — take your book !” he continued, drawing the volume from 
beneath his pillow. 44 But, unless you would convulse her heart with 
agony, as you have unwittingly convulsed mine, tell her not, on 
your life, through what strange hands it has experienced a momen- 
tary transit !— Unless you wish to be expulsed for ever from your 
toother’s house, — unless you wish to incur her malediction, — never, 
never, while you live, breathe in the ear of that unhappy woman, the 
reprobated name of Abednego Osalez !” 

Ere the sufferer ceased to speak, his voice was becoming lost in 
broken sobs; and so terrible and absorbing was- his emotion, that 
Basil had not courage to pursue the anxious inquiries suggesting 
themselves to his mind. ITe was overpowered by the spectacle of so 
profoundly-felt a grief. In order to relieve the feelings of the old 
man from his observation, he again rose and walked to the window, 
in order to straighten and restore to his pocket the book and crum- 
pled letter replaced in his hands by Abednego. 


By the time he finished his task and returned to the bedside, the 
old man had completely recovered his self-possession, and was lying 
with his face exposed in all its usual harsh com posed ness of feature. 

“ You arc the comptroller of my household now ,” said he, address* 
ing Basil with a grim attempt at a smile. 44 Tell me, — does the poor 
boy stdl officiate as my lackey ?” 

44 B11 is installed down stairs, sir, to answer the inquiries of your 
numerous visiters,’ 5 replied Basil, somewhat startled by his change of 
tone. 

4i Ay, ay ? — I wonder, while you were about it, you had not the 
street laid with straw, and the knocker tied up, as for some dainty 
goosecap’s l}ing in ! — muttered Abednego, forcing a laugh. 

44 Perhaps I might have done so, sir, but from the fear of offending 
you,” replied Basil, attempting to smile in his turn. 44 Methinks I have 
taken liberties enough in your establishment.” 

44 My illness must have caused no little commotion among my cus- 
tomers !” resumed Abednego, evidently intent upon distracting Ba- 
sil’s recollection from his recent struggle of feeling. 44 There arc 
more people interested in the life and de^th of A. O. than in the fair- 
est of the childbed puppets in fine linen, we were tailing of! Sore 
are their misgivings, poor prodigal souls, concerning the hands into 
w hich, on my decease, their bonds and securities might fall ! To 
them it is a matter of name and fame that the heir of the old Jew 
should prove a man as trustworthy as himself! 5 ’ 

44 There has been some anxiety testified, sir, I must admit, if that 
be. any consolation to you,” replied young Annesley. “ Every day, 
from twelve to two, the door is besieged, I am told, with applicants, 
concerning not alone your house in Greek Street, but dozens of other 
houses. But as I am by no means qualified to act as your clerk or 
deputy, you must consult Bill on your recovery. Having little appe- 
tite for business, I have left all such matters in his hands.” 

44 But my letters ? 5 ’ inquired A. O,, feeling, or affecting to fed 
anxiety. 

44 As soon as you are better, the boy shall bring them up to you.” 

14 1 am better, — I am better, — I am quite well already !” cried his 
companion, settling himself in bed. 44 1 am always well enough for 
business !” 

Having roused up the nurse by a touch on the shoulder, Basil no .; 
despatched her down stairs in search of the letters and papers left for 
A. O. ; of which, on her return, she brought back an apron full. 

* 4 1 find that you have had certain fair inquirers,” observed Basil, 
while the woman was away, 44 fully confirming your former attesta- 
tion to me of the advantages of a Money-lender’s calling ! You have 
had those pressing and sueing to see you , — -to be admitted to see 
whom, others arc eager suitors ! You have had the Duke of Roches- 
ter here twice a day, evidently believing your illness to be a subter- 
fuge ; and in the ether room, there is a whole bale of necessaries, — > 
sugar, arrow-root, wax candles, — despatched to you, not by a gro- 
cer’s wife, (as the natuie of the gilt seems to indicate,) but by no 
less a person than the lovely Countess of Winter field ! 5 ’ 

Abednego replied by a hoarse chuckle, — 

44 1 should starve, but for that woman ; and her family might starve 
but for me /” cried he, turning exultingly on his pillow. 44 She is the 
purveyor of my larder — the cieik of my kitchen ! Well, w T ell ! I am at 
least as grateful to her for her saga, tapioca, and Welsh flannel, (of 
which you might have found wholesale pieces had j 7 ou looked in the 
lumber-room below, when you and the nurse were smothering me up the 
other night,) as she to the memory of the husband who made her 
what she is, and whose portrait I have in pawn yonder in my bu- 
reau !’ 5 

The nurse row re-entered the room with her burthen ; ar.d having 
deposited the papers on a chair beside the bed, Basil dismissed her, 
in order that Abednego might examine them undisturbed by her 
presence. 

44 Show me the minister who lias a more voluminous correspon- 
dence on his hands than this !” cried the old man, pointing exulting- 
ly to the pile of papers. “And, pray, who paid the postage of ail 
these letters ?’ 5 

44 1 did, sir; that is, I supplied the money to your servant.’ 5 

44 So, so! — you institute > ourself my banker then, as well as my 
vna-tre d'hotel and groom of the chambers? — With all my heart! — 
I am always ready to accept services and comforts I have not to pay 
lor,— witness the tea and sugar of my Lady Winterfield ! —Look 
here! 55 — he continued, pointing out, among the letters he was sue. 
cessively opening, several with seals that bore aristocratic emblazon- 
ments, — Dukes, Marquises, Earls, — I have them all, all in my train! 
I walk like a king at his coronation, with Howards, Percys, Planta- 
genets, in the wake of the contemned and trampled A. O. ! — Thrift- 
less fools! — some flattering, — some cajoling, — some threatening! — 
as if any single word they could write or utter would influence mo 
more than the winter’s wind whistling through the crannies of my 
casement, — unless, indeed, the Open Sesame called, interest ! — at 
twenty per cent., fifty per cent., a hundred per cent., — I am willing 
to hear of their bonds and post-obits, their wants and distresses! 
But what care I for the executions in their houses, or the seizure of 
their family plate, or their wife’s jewels ? IIere 5 s a fellow whites to 
me,” pursued Abednego, striking the open letter in his hand, 44 beg* 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA. — ABEDNEGO. 


25 


ging me to save the honor of his family mansion from the desecra- 
tion of sheriff's officers, and swearing he will not survive such a dis- 
grace ! — Wa3 it / who brought the disgrace upon him? — Was it I 
who decoyed him to Crockford’s ? — Was it / who induced him to 
hazard thousands, night after night, at piquet, when he had not even 
hundreds at his disposal ? Don't let hun survive his disgrace ! — not 
the disgrace of bailiff', but that of insolvency, brought upon himself 
by prodigality and vice ! — When he fitst applied to me for assistance, 
he informed me, in answer to rnv remonstrances, (much in-the terms 
once used by a certain Mr. Basil Annesley,) that became for money, 
not advice, — that he wanted a Jew, and not a family chaplain !” 

Basil was vexed to iiod himself coloring deeply at this allusion. 

44 And here,” continued A. O., bringing forth a perfumed billet 
from among the vvafered communications of attorneys and stockbro- 
kers— ill-favored epistles from Birchin Lane, Bartlett’s Buildings, 
and Hart Street, Bloomsbury, — “ here is a dainty creature who wants 
me to oblige her with the loan of her own emeralds to appear at 
Windsor Castle ! — The guest of royalty, forsooth ! — yet writing in 
terms more abject than I ever heard used by Bill the sweeper to an 
old Money-lender ! — More delicate handwritings. — ‘Lucy Mait- 
land?’ — Ay, ay! — the old-china fancier! — And here, Basil — here, 
Mr. Annesley, i3 the first application from one of your brother offi- 
cers! — My eye has been upon that boy these two months ! — I knew 
I should soon have him in my books, — that is, trying to get into my 
my books; for I have enough of the family affairs on my hands with 
those of his precious uncle.” 

u Wilberton? — is he in difficulties ?” exclaimed Annesley in a tone 
of regret. 

u Why not — He keeps the finest company ; and has a taste for 
opera-dancers, — as costly an item for a boy in the Guards as Sevres 
and Dresden to his mother. You need not blush again — I did not 
Bay opera singers , Mr. Annesley. T. ust to my delicacy to make no 
allusion in your presence to any such fragile commodities !’’ 

“ I do trust to your delicacy never again to allude, with light men- 
tion, to the person at whom, though under so false a designation, 
you are aiming !” cried Basil, with warm indignation. 

41 Well, well, — no offence, no offence! Esther Verelst is, I dare 
say, no more fragile than her neighbours; though that implies no 
great things ill the way of discretion. — 4 H. R.’ — So ! then, my Peri- 
cles, the five thousand for which you pledged your public honor, 
and the title-deed of an estate, in your family since they wheedled it 
out of the scurvy soul of James I., has not sufficed you ? — You must 
cut a figure as a giver of banquets, must yon, as well as on the 
Treasury Bench? — What is the joy of place, I marvel, unless its 
salary suffice to grease the wheels of office ? — * The expenses of his 
very ostensible situation to be maintained !’ he writes. — Jackass ! — 
Because he chooses to have Rhenish wines and French enttees at his 
dinner, and to be a fop and a fribble as well as the first orator of the 
day, must he needs make false pretences to the Jews about 4 the ex- 
penses of his ostensible situation?’ — Excellent H. R. ! — though you 
date from Downing Street, you will not throw dust in the eyes of A. 
O. ! — Were you half the clever fellow the world believes you, your 
letter would contain three lines. — ‘I want two thousand pounds, — 
can give landed security, and not more than twelve per cent.’ — I'hat 
is coming to the point ; between knowingone and knowing one, the 
best statesmanship. I should have thought the experience of office 
might have taught him the futility of fine phrases, — mere loss of 
time to writer and reader ! It is not by locking up brickbats in a 
plate chest, Mr. Basil Annesley, that you can convert them into 
family plate.’’ 

44 I am afraid you will tire yourself, sir,” said Basil, “ I would 
fain see you take some nourishment before I go. Let me call up the 
nurse, and lay aside the remainder of these papers till the afternoon ; 
for 1 have only a few minutes more to be here.’ 4 

44 No, no ! you must wait a bit !” cried Abednego. “ I have some- 
thing to say to you. I have a present to make you.” 

44 I want no presents !” cried Basil, instantly rising, and preparing 
for departure. 44 1 never accepted one in m v life, save from kinsman 
or friend.” 

44 From the former, I suspect, my poor Basil, your gifts have been 
scanty enough !” ejaculated Abednego, with a degree of familiarity 
rhat served only to aggravate the displeasure of his companion. 
44 With respect to the latter, I flatter myself I have as good a title 
to the name as such flimsy things as Wilberton or Maitland.’* 

“They are my brother officers, — not my friends!” interrupted 
young Annesley, 

44 Then, how came you to accept from the latter the desk-seal, 
with which you daily seal your letters ?” demanded Abednego, hav- 
ing thrown young Annesley completely off his guard, and enjoying 
his uncontrollable start of astonishment at this minuteness of infor- 
mation concerning his private affairs. 44 But no matter ! I will not 
force my benefactions upon you. I do not deal in jasper desk-seals; 
and any day I choose, the Duca di San Catalda will give me a bun- 
dred ducats for the miniature I intended to throw away on you. — 
Good morning !” 

The attention of Basil Annesley was arrested by this remark. He 
was eager for a pretext to sit dov\ n again, and await an opportunity 


of renewing the conversation. 

44 1 forgot to tell you, sir,” said he, 44 that among the applicants for 
the loan of your house in Greek Street, is a picture dealer whe ie- 
sides in that neighborhood.” 

44 Apropos to miniatures ?” demanded Abednego, fixing his shrewd 
eyes, with a cunning smile, upon the young man’s face. 

“Apropos to your own affairs!” was ihe indignant rrjoiner of 
Basil. 

41 As regards my own affairs, then,” said the Money lender. 44 5 
am in no such torture about the lease of my house in Soho ! I have 
half a dozen others standing empty, — one in Park Lane, — one in St. 
James’s Square, — and I shall soon have one, I suspect, in Arlington 
Street; for, unless I am much mistaken, I shall bo forced to make a 
crash at Lard Maitland’s. I have given him three years’ law to re- 
deem engagements, which I knew Irom the first to be thousands upon 
thousands beyond his power of redemption !” 

44 Lord Maitland!” exclaimed Basil, aghast. 

44 Ay ! Lord Maitland ! Why not, as well as another.” 

44 But his unfortunate wife and daughters — — ” 

44 His wife is some degrees worse than unfortunate. But that is 
her concern, and her husband’s As to their hopeful progeny, it 13 
written that the sins of the parent are to be Visited on their child- 
ren ; and seldom were less deserving children exposed to ances- 
tral retribution. Like father, like son ; — like mother, like daughters ; 
— all empty headed fools together ! But that his Lordship has been 
trying to defraud me of my just due, I should, however, havo felt 
disposed to deal less harshly with him. But when I find a fellow 
profiting by his peerage to— — ” 

44 Pardon me if I entreat you to give me no undue insight into the 
private affairs of my friends,” interrupted Basil, again rising from his 
chair, on finding that they were straying further and further from the 
miniature, 

44 Ay, ay ! You are afraid of finding your chains of gold mere 
pinchbeck. You want an excuse-to your conscience for continuing 
to flirt with Lord Maitland’a giddy daughters, to eat his pine-apples, 
and drink his claret, — though certain that, by payment, they are no 
more his than yours !” cried A. O., with a caustic sneer. 14 What 
curious calculations might one make, aite* some royal or noble ban- 
quet, cf the number and names of the persons at whose real expense 
the noble guests had been entertained ! — Messrs. Grove, the fish- 
monger, — Giblett, the butcher, — Fisher, the poulterer, — Gunter, the 
confectioner, — Fortnum, the grocer, —-Morel, the oilman, — Durand, 
the wine merchant, — Garcia, the fruiterer !” — 

44 You are at least making out a very tempting bill of fare, sir,” 
interrupted Basil, anxious to get awry. 44 J can discern a Barme- 
cide’s feast through this bare muster-roll of names ” 

“ You are that filthy thing a gounvar.d , then, as well as the slave 
ot a pretty face?” coolly demanded the old man. “Well, well! 
Crod mend you!— In my time, young men were content with the 
vices of young men ! — Now-a days, they monopolise the weaknesses 
of boyhood and senility, — reconciling all extremes, — the follies of 
beardless chins and greybeards !” 

44 1 must again say, good morning, sir, since you seem disposed to 
take me so severely to task,” said Basil, abruptly. 

44 Before you go, however, I have a service to request of you,” 
said Abednego, suddenly lowering his voice. 44 Don’t be afraid ! — I 
am not going to ask you for the Look again. You have wisely put 
it into your pocket, and I honor your caution. All that I have to 
request is, that you will break with your own hands the seals you 
prudently placed on yonder bereau. Here is the key,” said he, pro- 
ducing one which Basil had already noticed under his pillow, when 
they t fleeted the sick man’s change of bed. 

Having readily complied with Abednego’s desire, Annesley stood 
awaiting his further orders. 

44 Touch the head of the brass nail to the left of the last pigeon 
hole,” said Abednego, leaning on his elbow, and watching the pro- 
ceedings of his delegate. 

Basil Annesley did as he was required ; when, lo ! there started 
up, from the bottom of the old-fashioned bureau, a tiap or hide, the 
well of which contained a variety of articles, apparently of less value 
than those which lay unguarded and exposed above. 

“ You will find a brown paper packet among those trinkets,” said 
Abednego. 44 Take it out,— ciose the trap,— and see that the spring 
is secure ! — Then lock the bureau, and bring me the key and the 
parcel.” 

More amused than angry at the imperative tone in which these 
orders were conveyed, Basil obeyed. 

In another minute, he had laid both upon the pillow; and was 
aaain taking his leave, when Abednego bade him wait a moment. 

°With rembiing hands, the old man was proceeding to undo the 
packet. 

*• Gan I assist. you, sir?” said Basil, conceiving that it was with 
this view Abednego had delayed his departure. 

The old man answered not a word ; though his hands trembled so 
exceedingly, that it was evident he would have some difficulty in ac- 
complishing his purpose. There wa3 a knot in the slight cord that 
tied up the packet. 


26 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA. — ABEDNEGO. 


41 Better cut it,” said Annesley, after a few minutes lost in unfruc- 
tuous attempts, and presenting a penknife from kis pocket-book for 
that purpose. 

44 Waste not — want not !” murmured the old man, in a feeble 
voice; and after another moment or two, Annesley perceived, to his 
utter amazement, that, in spite of Abednego’s homely proverb, and 
deliberate parsimony, his feelings were so deeply involved in his 
task, that tears were actually falling upon the little parcel ! 

44 Again thus agitated ! thought Basil. 44 This must be the very 
weakness of disease! — Twice in one day for this iron man to evince 
tokens of sensibility ! — Yet, who would believe me, were I to assert 
that I had seen tears shed by the stony eyes ®f A. O. !” 

The packet was now open ; but Abednego’s hand not ceased to 
tremble, or his tears to fall. 

It contained only a miniature case ; and Basil’s heart began to 
beat strongly on recalling to mind the recent allusion of his host to 
to such an object, in connexion with the Duca di San Catalda. 

44 Accept this from me,” said the old man, placing it open in his 
hands. 

And to the utter wonderment of Basil Annesley, he found, on 
opening the case, that it contained a beautiful enamel copy of Ve- 
relst’s exquisite picture of the Esmeralda, — the female figure of 
which presenting a striking likeness of his beloved Esther ! 

The gift was indeed estimable ! — But by what strange series of 
coincidences was he indebted for such a treasure to the munificence 
of the Money-lender — A. O. ! 

CHAPTER XI. 

Though the gift bestowed by Abednego upon young Annesley 
must at all times have been a most welcome one, it could not have 
chanced at a more auspicious moment than now ; when, for the 
first time since the renewal of their acquaintance in England he 
found himself banished from the presence of Esther Verelst. He 
was himself moreover on the eve of exile to an opposite quarter of 
the town ; so that even chance encounters in the street were improb- 
able ; the company of the Guards to which he belonged being un- 
der orders to march into the Tower the very day following his ac- 
ceptance of the miniature from Abednego. 

These Eastern quarters are rarely very inviting to the young men 
of fortune and family of whom the Guards are chiefly composed ; 
unless during the summer months, when they can prevail on 
their gay friends of the West End to steam it to the Tower, and 
breakfast with them, on pretence of viewing the lions of the place ; 
and examining the interesting autographs cut in the walls of their 
mess-room, by Peveril of the Peak and other prisoners of note. — 
But it was just then peculiarly disagreeable to Basil to find himself 
moated up with Wilberton and Maitland, whose secret had been ac- 
cidentally placed in his keeping ; or even with Loftus and Blen- 
cowe, whose insight into his own, and want of delicacy in their rail- 
leries on the subject, — he had more than once found occasion to re- 
sent. There was no remedy, however. With so little to com- 
plain of in the hardships of his military duties, Basil Annesley was 
conscious that it would be absurd to murmur, as an evil, against a 
few weeks’ banishment to a remote quarter of the town. 

It happened, however, that within a few days of taking up his new 
quarters, he was attacked with indisposition : either the result of his 
exertion and attendance upon the Money lender, or of the humid at- 
mosphere of the tower ; which amounts almost to the mal’aria, and 
at certain seasons of the year is sure to engender a low fever in the 
garrison. In compassion to his illness, perhaps, the two favorite 
raws established for his persecution by his facetious friends, (his inti- 
macy with the Verelst and with A. O.,) were suffered to heal unmo- 
lested. There was not sufficient resource in the place to dispense 
with his aid for picquet, or whist ; and the little mess-table was ac- 
cordingly undisturbed by the bickerings too often produced elsewhere 
by the perpetual quizzing in vogue in the Maitland set. Basil did 
not hear above a half a dozen times a day allusions to his midnight 
attempt to break into the house of the Westminster Jew ; and only 
very remote hints of his passion for the arts. Nevertheless, the 
very first day he was able to shake off his indisposition so far as 
to visit the west end of the town, in spite of the bantering to which 
he had been subjected, one of his first visits was to Delahaye Street. 
He was anxious to inquire after his patient, — he was anxious to in- 
quire after his friend ; — yes ! his friend ! — for how could he otherwise 
estimate the man to whom he was indebted for the semblance of 
that beloved face which never quitted his bosom for a moment 
of the day or night ? Abednego appeared, indeed, to have contem- 
plated such an appropriation of the miniature ; — for it was set in a 
plain gold fausse montrey with a loop for suspension round the neck. 

“ I swear I am now nearly as ill myself,” murmured Basil, as he 
drove along Great George Street, 44 as poor Abednego on the bitter 
night I brought him home here ; an exploit which, I verily believe, 
was the cause of all my own indisposition !” 

At the end of Delahaye Street he got out, and proceeded on foot 
to the money-lender’s door. 

So accustomed was he now to the untowardnesses of that rugged 


household, that he did not so much as expect any notice to be taken 
of his rap at the door for the first ten minutes. 

To his great surprise, however, scarcely two were allowed to elapse 
before it was opened ; — not by the rough-headed sweeper — not by 
the rotund nurse ; but by a stranger — an old Jew in all the nursery 
force of the term, of sinister countenance and squalid attire, stooping 
shoulders, rusty beard, and the physiognomy of Barabbas ! 

Now that Bd. il was certified of the disconnexion of Abednego 
with the hated tribe, to which his name appeared to proclaim him at- 
tached, he could not forbear being surprised and disgusted at his 
choosing to entertain so unsavory an individual in his household. 

44 I wish to speak to Mr. Osalez,” said he. 

“ You vish vat?” demanded the new porter, with an ungracious air. 

44 1 want to speak to your master — ” 

c ‘ To the tevlish wid your mastersh — ” retorted the Jew, about to 
close the door in his face. 

“ I have business with A. O. !” cried Basil resolving to forestall 
the measure by adopting the phraseology of the place. 

44 Theresh no A. 0. here now. The house ish skold,” replied the 
I man. “The house ish mine own, bought wid mine lawful monish— 

I and vat have you to shay againsht it ?” 

44 Will you favor me with the present address of Mr. Osalez ? — 
j He was ill when I left him a fortnight ago, and I am anxious to 
| inquire after him.” 

“ He may be ted now, for vat I or any one caresh !’’ retorted the 
Jew, now really fulfilling his intention by slamming the door in the 
face of the troublesome intruder. 

Gone ! — vanished like a Will-o’-the-Wisp ! Most provoking !— 
most perplexing ! Basil, who had despatched the book back to his 
mother on the day of his parting from Abednego, with only a 
few words of apology for the liberty he had taken in borrowing it 
from her room, had in the interim made up his mind to appeal stren- 
uously to the sympathy of Abednego, /for further information on a 
subject concerning which, at his present age, he felt himself entitled 
to explanation ; and the unexpected disappearance of the old man 
was the heaviest disappointment he could have undergone. 

Under a sudden impulse of irritation, instead of quitting the door 
which had been closed upon him, he knocked loudly. 

44 Vat ish your pleashure to make dis teviPs noish at my gatesh?” 
cried the angry new proprietor, instantlyreopening it. 

44 My pleasure is to offer you a sovereign for tidings of the pres- ^ 
ent residence of Mr. Osalez,” cried Basil, following the axioms of 
A. 0., and coming at once to the point. 

The individual thus abruptly apostrophized, coolly jerked the prof- 
ferred coin into the pocket of his dirty coat, and referred him to 
Abednego’s former residence in Greek Street. 

44 Fool that I was, not to think of it myself!” muttered Basil, and 
away he hurried to drive off like mad towards Soho. 

Arrived in Greek Street, however, his hopes were again frustrated. 
Scaffolding was established against the walls ; and bricklayers and 
plasterers were at work. The house was let, it appeared, for twenty 
one years ; and the workmen knew not so much as the name of the 
former proprietor. 

44 1 was in hopes they were going to lefer me back to Paulet 
! Street,” said Basil to himself, in the bitterness of his heart. 44 Nay, 
without their reference, I suppose it will end with my having to 
travel once more to St. Agnes le Clare. A better alternative, cer- 
tainly, than advertising in the Times , or Hue a nd-Cry for the pres- 
ent abode of A. O.” 

In the excitement of feeling produced by his disappointment, he 
even determined on a personal inquiry at the door of Verelst, which 
he promised himself never again to approach till recalled by the 
artist ; and though he had the vexation of hearing, syllable by syl- 
lable, the same messagd delivered to him a fortnight before, that the 
young ladies w T ere 4 ‘out,” and the painter and his wife 44 engaged,” 
he had at least the comfort of finding that Mrs. Verelst was con- 
valescent. 

44 The young ladies are w r ell, I hope?” said he, turning away his 
face as he hazarded the inquiry. 

<4 Quite well, sir, — that is, except Miss Esther, who has been poor- 
ly for some time,” said the maid, in a confused manner. 

44 But you said she was out ?” 

44 Yes, sir — that is — sir — the family don’t see any more company, 

I was ordered on no accouut to let nobody in,” said the girl still 
more embarrassed ; and Basil, vexed as he was, having no further 
plea for inquiry, had only to express his regret at the young lady’s 
indisposition, and walk away. 

He returned that day to the Tower in a mood cf mind render- 
ing it extremely fortunate that his companions received him on 
his arrival with yawns, rather than pleasantries. Maitland and 
Wilberton were grooving too dull to find spirits for quizzing ; and 
finding that he brought them no news from St. James Street, they 
soon returned to the snooze before a roasting fire, from wdiich his re- 
turn had bestirred them. 

Esther ill ; Abednego vanished ! No means of inquiry after either ! 
By degrees the state of suspense to which Annesley w r as reduced, 
became too intolerable to be borne. In the dreary isolation of the 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA.— ABEDNEGO. 


S 


Tower, he had nothing better to occupy his time, than to ponder 
over his perplexities ; till he finally became so overmastered by his 
feelings, as to take the desperate resolution of applying to Wilberton 
and Maitland for information. He had every reason to infer that 
they at least must be cognizant of the money-lender’s removal ; and 
at the risk of incurring their sneers, boldly inquired of them, one 
night, as they were separating for bed, whether they could favor 
him with the present address of A. O. Each looked at the other : 
the one with surprise ; the other with indignation. Wilberton with 
his usual boisterous folly burst into a horse-laugh ; but John Mait- 
land accepted the question almost as an insult. He had not forgot- 
ten Basil’s allusion to the money-lender in Arlington Street, a day 
or two afterA. O.’s awkward appearance on the scene ; and felt con- 
vinced that Annesley must be fully aware of his family difficulties. 

“ You had better look in the Court Guide,” said he; u or in 
the Directory, under the head of money-lender. Should these re- 
sources fail, I dare say the thief-takers of Bow street can give you 
information concerning your friend.” 

Maitland had quitted the room before Basil recovered breath to 
reply. Resolved to carry out their mutual explanations on the 
morrow, when John Maitland’s groundless anger would have sub* 
sided, he returned to the corner where he had been seated, and, 
more from listlessness than with any settled purpose, took up from 
the table the Court Guide, which was lying beside the Annual Ar- 
my List, (the two classics of London mess rooms,) and turned to 
the letter O. 

The patronymic of Osajez was too foreign to admit of much expec- 
tation of finding it there at all. Nevertheless, immediately preceding 
a long catalogue of O’Shannessy’s, there appeared the name of Osa- 
lez three times repeated : — 

Osalez, Bernard, Esq , 14, Poland street. 

Osalez, R. Esq., 4, Abbey Road, Regent’s Park. 

Osalez, A. Esq., 74, Bernard street, Russell Square. 

Now, though A. Osalez, Esq., might import Andrew, Augustus, 
Alfred, Allan, — or fifty other names, — Basil could not for the life 
of him, but hope and believe that the auspicious initial stood for no 
other than “ Abednego.” There might be dilapidated houses to be 
bought, sold, or exchanged, in Bernard street as well as elsewhere ; 
at all events, he was determined that the morrow should clear up his 
doubts ; and, accordingly, at the very time he had previously prom- 
ised himself to have a clearing up with Maitland, was approaching 
on foot the door of a substantial- looking house in Bernard street, 
Russell Square. 

“ What a thrice double ass I must be,” was his secret commentary 
on his own weakness, “ to fancy that such a man as A. O. would 
allow hi3 abode to become a matter of advertisement in Bjyle’s Court 
Guide.” 

The nearer he approached the house, the more he became assured 
of his folly. Not a vestige, in the comfortable, clean, and modern 
residence before him, of the tumble-down nature of A. O.’s habitual 
resorts, — not a token of occasion for a “ repairing lease,” in Bernard 
street, Russell Square, not a brick discolored, not an atom of mortar 
displaced in the pointing. The door was varnished, the knocker 
lustrous, — the steps bath-bricked into snowy whiteness, not a speck 
under the scraper ; and the A. Osalez of the Court Guide would 
have become an old maid of independent fortune, in Basil’s appre- 
hension, but for the qualifying designation of ‘‘'esquire.” 

“ At all events, as I am utterly unknown in this quarter of the 
town, I can knock and make inquiry,” cogitated Basil ; and the 
summons having been answered by a grave-lookmg family butler, 
he was informed, in answer to his formal demand, that “ Mr. Osa- 
lez was out.” 

“ Has he not been recently indisposed,” demanded young An- 
nesley. 

“ My master, sir, has just returned to town.” 

Recollecting Abednego’s diatribe agaiust the ruinous waste of 
pampered menials, and estimating the expenses (perquisites inclu- 
ded) of so respectable looking a gentleman as he had the honor of 
addressing, at between two and three hundred per annum, Basil al- 
most smited at his own infatuation in persisting in his inquiries. He 
was duly sensible of- the impossibility of the money lender having 
affinity with the proprietor of an abode so comfortable, a servant so 
much its master. 

“ I called here for the purpose of inquiring after a relation of 
Mr. Osalez,” hazarded Basil, by way of excuse to the butler for not 
leaving his card. 

“ I am not aware, sir, that my master has any relations,” replied 
the man, assuming an air of dignity and mistrust. u I have been 
some years in his service, and never heard of any.’ ’ 

“In that case,” said Basil, “ I am mistaken ; I understood that 
Mr. Abednego Osalez was connected with him. 

“My master’s name, sir, is Abednego,” replied the butler, evident- 
ly growing impatient of so long an interrogatory on so cold a day, 
the chilly breezes of which had already dislodged a portion of powder 
from his cauliflower head. 

“ At what hour is Mr. Osalez likely to be at home ?” inquired the 
overjoyed Basil. 


“ I really can’t take upon me to say, sir. His time of returning 
from the city is very uncertain.” 

Young Annesley longed to hazard an inquiry what especial busi- 
ness or calling took him habitually to the city ; but destitute of pre- 
text for such impertinent curiosity, he found nothing better to say 
than that he would call again — nothing better to do than to slink 
away, — leaving the dignified butler ®f the opinion that he had been 
summoned from his afternoon doze in the pantry (or more probably 
before the dining-room fire, with the Morning Herald in his hand 
by way of a screen) to very little purpose, and by a very suspicious 
young gentleman. 

Meanwhile, scarcely had Basil reached the corner of the street, 
when there drove past him, at a brisk pace, a plain but handsome 
chariot, to which he should have scarcely raised his eyes in Ar- 
lington street ; but which, in the neighborhood of Russell Square, 
assumed something of an aristocratic grace : nay, as it glanced 
along, he caught a glimpse of a head within, which, but for the 
impossibilty of such a transition — he could have sworn to be that 
of A. O. 

li The old man’s face is running in my head,” said he, vexed at 
his own folly ; “ and like Sir Thomas Browne, when writing upon 
quineuxes, I descry one in every object in nature. Not an old 
clothesman passes me, but I fancy I can trace a resemblance to 
Abednego ! And now to be equally struck by the likeness of the 
proprietor of a pair of horses worth four hundred guineas, to a man 
who grudges himself a hackney Tcoach !” 

At that moment, however, he recalled to mind his collision with 
a similar carriage, when driving with Blencowe, opposite to Hatch- 
ell’s nearly a month before ; and the assertion of his companion that 
it’s solitary inmate was none other than the renowned A. O. ! 

He had half a mind to return and verify the fact ; but al- 
ready, while pursuing his train of recollections, and tryingto recal 
to mind whether he had actually seen the face of the money-lender 
in the brown chariot, on the day in question, he had reached half 
way across Russell Square; and by the time he had retraced his 
steps into Bernard street, the carriage had disappeared. He had 
not courage to reconfront the portly butler in order to ascertain 
whether in the interim it had deposited its inmate at the door of 
Mr. Osalez. 

Moreover, he had a commission to execute for Wilberton at Law- 
rence’s, concerning the progress of a new dressing-box, the building 
of which had only reached the second story, requiring him to be in 
Bond street at a certain hour, to meet a workman who was to re- 
ceive orders concerning the admeasurement of the compartments ; 
and there was no time to lose. 

Still, the subject nearest his heart was not forgotton amid the 
perplexities of patent hinges, and the shades of green morocco or 
purple velvet ; and after taking a sandwich and a glass of sherry at 
the Club, and asking every one in vain for news# to carry back to 
the ark from which he had been permitted to escape, he sent for 
Wilberton’s cab, which he had promised to drive back to the Tower, 
and prepared for departure. 

i( Surely,” argued Basil with himself, with singular disregard to 
metropolitan topography, “ it would make little difference were I 
to drive round by Russell Square, and so along the City Road ? I 
feel that I shall not sleep till I have cut through the heart of this 
perplexing mystery.” 

It is surprising how vaguely we admeasure distances, when they 
regard the legs and horses of other people. Having convinced 
himself that he was taking almost the nearest way, by half-past five 
o’clock, Basil was dashing along through the lighted streets, towards 
Bernard street, Russell Square ; and emboldened by a couple of 
glasses of sherry, he desired Wilberton’s tiger to knock at the door 
before which he checked his horse, and inquire whether “ Mr. Osalez 
were at home.” 

A footman in a plain livery now appeared to reinforce the butler ; 
and who having answered in the affirmative, Basil had no alternative 
but to jump out and follow the servant, who was already preceding 
him to the drawing-room with the name he had received from the 
tiger, up the richly- carpeted and well-lighted stairs. Basil’s heart 
almost quailed, as he followed his pilot in this vague voyage of dis- 
covery. How was it possible that this could be the new abode of 
A. O. ? All was as well established and regular as if the proprietor 
were already a grandfather, succeeding in name of inheritance to a 
grandfather of his own. 

The door of the drawing room being now thrown open, and the 
name of “ Mr. Annesley” articulately announced, there was no re- 
ceding; and struck by the unusual gleam of light within, it occurred 
to Basil, that the rooms were prepared for a dinner-party, and that he 
passed with the servants for one of the guests ! 

Nor was he mistaken. On clearing the threshold, he perceived 
that half a dozen grave-looking gentlemen were assembled round the 
fire-place ; — one or two seated in cozy arm chairs, — one or two stand- 
ing chatting together upon the hearth-rug. He would have given 
worlds to retreat ! — Never had he felt himself so completely an in- 
truder ! — Not a face in the room, — all of which were turned towards 
him, — had he ever beheld in his life ! 


28 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA. — ABEDNEGO. 


Nevertheless, the servants had now retired, closing the door be 
hind them ; while he looked around in indescribable dismay, hoping 
to determine, from the attitude of the persons present, which of them 
was the master of the house, to whom his apologies were due. But 
a dead silence had followed the announcement of his name; and no 
one seemed more particularly surprised than the rest at his joining 
the party. 

At length this portion of the mystery was explained. A solemn- 
looking old gentleman, with a high narrow forehead, a pair of nan- 
keen shorts and discolored white silk stockings, many degrees info, 
rior in external presentment to the butler, stepped graciously forward 
from the rug to the carpet, to announce to the confused young man, 
that “ Mr. Osalez would make his appearance in a moment, — hav- 
ing had letters of importance to answer, after his return from the city. 5 ’ 

Annesley bowed and tried to be thankful. At all events, he judged, 
that it would be better to^ await the coming of the master of the 
house and make apologies to him, than to hurry through explana- 
tions unintelligible and unimportant to the guests, and sneak off with 
the air of a detected pickpocket. He had time, therefore, to examine 
the apartment; which, though simply, was richly furnished ; — with 
two or three striking pictures and two or three noble bronzes by way 
of ornament. The conversation his arrival had interrupted was now 
resumed, though little to his advantage — for not a syllable uttered by 
the five elderly gentlemen conveyed the smallest meaning to his car! 
It was a mystery of which he did not possess the key ; — being nei- 
ther more nor less than the jargon of bankers and stock-brokers! 

Not daring to seat himself, he stood, hat. in hand, awaiting the 
opening of the door, and wishing himself fifty fathoms under the 
foundations of the White Tower, or anywhere else, rathei than a 
drawing-room in Bernard street, Russell Square. Had there been 
women present, he would have felt less embarrassed ; the tact and 
courtesy of the sex readily supplying excuses for the indiscretion of 
one of his age and appearance. But those five solemn old mrn, in 
their knee-breeches and buckled shoes, — their white side curls or 
bald crowns, — amounted to the awful. He would as soon have inter- 
rupted a solemnization of the priests of Isis and Osiris in the Great 
Pyramid. 

At length, a step approached the drawing-room door ; — and though 
Basil’s blood ran cold with nervousness, his cheeks glowed with 
blushes as the door opened, and the master of the house made his 
appearance ! 

“ I have a thousand apologies to offer you, gentlemen,” said a 
voice which yielded instant confirmation to the astounding convic- 
tion which a first glance had produced in the mind of Basil, — “I 
have a thousand apologies to offer you ! — a messenger from Downing 
street was awaiting me on my return. I fear I have appeared very 
long. But dinner will be served in a moment.’* 

Mr. Osalez now shook hands in turn with his elderly guests, ad- 
dressing to each some distinguishing word of compliment. When it 
came to the turq of Basil to be noticed, the young man’s heart sank 
within him. He was prepared for a start of surprise — a sarcastic 
reproof! It did not occur to him that, his name having been al- 
ready privately announced to his host by the servants, no surprise, 
at least, would be manifested. So far, however, from hearing the 
sarcasms he had anticipated, even his apologies were forestalled by 
the well-bred courtesy of Mr. Osalez. 

“ I rejoice to see you, my dear Annesley,” said he. “ You must 
leave it to me to apologize to my old friends here, for your appear- 
ance among them in your morning dress, — my invitation, I know, 
reached you too late this evening, to admit cf your dressing to join 
our party. You have shown, indeed, far higher breeding than my- 
self, — by preferring your own discomfort to keeping others waiting. 5 ’ 

So perfect was the self-possession of A. O. while uttering this ex- 
planation, that Basil was for a moment really posed to determine 
whether he might not really have been invited, and the letter of in- 
vitation missed h m. 

“ Believe me, I had not the smallest intention of intruding upon 
your party — ” he was beginning. But Osalez stopped him- short. 
“ I have sent away your cabriolet till eight o’clock , 55 said he — “ that 
hour will, I believe, admit of your returning in time to the Tower .’ 5 

There was something so collected and so positive in the manner of 
his host, th^t Basil, seeing at once he was resolved to detain him, 
conceived that the best thing he could do for the furtherance of his 
own objects, was to coincide in the decision of his extraordinary 
friend. He had no leisure for deliberation, indeed, for at that mo- 
ment dinner was announced ; and on proceeding to the warm and 
comfortable dining-room, he saw that a seventh cover had been added 
to the richly-laid, round table. 

Never had Basil felt more embarrassed than on taking bis place ! 
* — Never had he felt, more thoroughly out of place! — Those grave- 
looking old men,— the mysterious host, who, by his composed man- 
ner of disposing of him, seemed to possess some preternatural influ- 
ence over his destinies. — But by degrees the influence of light and 
warmth, capital wines, and an excellent dinner, exercised their genial 
influence on soul and b^dy. Basil had been accustomed to feast 
with the great. The tables of the Duke of Rochester and Lord 
Maitland, of both of whom he had been of late a frequent guest, 


were cited by the world as uniting all that a cordon bleu , a first rate 
French cook, Italian confectioner, and German matre d’kotel, could 
produce in the way of savoir vfare. — But it struck him that he had 
never seen fish, flesh, and fowl, in such exquisite perfection as now ; 
and it amused him not a little to hear the venerable gentlemen treat 
of such matiers, not only with the intense gusto invariably attri- 
buted by old books to Aldermen, (a proof among many others that 
we derive our civilization from the East,) but as though the city were 
the fountain head of the good things of this world ; and that Billings- 
gate, Smithfield, and Farringdon, despatched to the West End only 
their refuse produce, after dedicating the finest to the heavier purses 
of the aristocracy of Guildhall. Ho had not been accustomed in 
Arlington street to hear turtle and venison treated of as things un- 
known, in perfection, on the Western side of Temple Bar! 

But it was not the mere gastronomy of the dinner that warmed his 
heart. It was most edifying to see the grave faces of the six old 
gentlemen relax under the influence of that convivial atmosphere. 
Warmed by ihe stimulus of wine, such as never before had reached 
his lips, (the juice of the grape pure from the wine-press of the sunny 
South, mellowed only by the hand of time, instead of the drugged 
and fiery decoctions to which messes and clubs had habituated his 
palate!) they soon expanded into cheerfulness; — and he had occa- 
sion to note the difference between the man of intelligence and in- 
formation unfolding his stores under such influence, and the empty 
noise produced by similar excitement upon his usual companions. — 
You might as well have attempted to intoxicate an exciseman’s 
guage, as produce more than a certain effect on the well-seasoned 
brains of these gcod livers of half a century’s experience. With 
them, the opener of the heart and mind served only to bring out, with 
freer expansion, their prodigious stores of knowledge of the world. 

And what a world ! — How illimitable did Basil’s horizon seemed 
to expand as he listened. Hitherto his notions of “ the world” might 
have been geographically defined as “bounded on the North by 
Marylebone, — on the South by Lambeth, — the East by St. Martin’s 
Lane,*-the West by Kensington Gardens.” But he now heard 
America and China familiarly talked of as lying w ithin the ring- 
fence of the kingdom of Mammon ! — India seemed regarded as a 
h®me-farm by these old gentlemen ; and the spice islands were their 
flower gardens ! — Their caravans were traversing the wilderness, 
like the private post of some lordly establishment. As to Europe, — 
poor, common place, domestic Europe, — each _of them had his courier 
galloping homewards from Petersburg, Vienna, Berlin — like Horse 
Guards’ estajettes , trotting backwards and forwards to Hampton 
Court or Hounslow. — As to Paris, it w T as a toy — a snuff-box, that 
seemed to lie in their waistcoat pocket ! 

While these facts were gradually transpiring, not in the way of 
vaunt but in the course of conversation, Basil naturally expected 
that a triumphant glance of the eye from Abcdnego would furtively 
intimate to him — “ Behold ! these are the kings of whom I spake ! 
— the Kings of Tarsus and Epirus, of Tyre and Sidon,-»-ihese are 
the master-hands that move the wires of kingly puppets, — these are 
the main-springs of aristocratic action, — these are they without 
w^hom privy-councils and parliaments might mouth and gibber in 
vain, — these are the veritable monarchs who make peace and war; — 
these are the potentates wht> created the independence of America, 
who rendered France a citizen kingdom, — and would do as much 
for the British empire, had peer-ridden England the smallest taste for 
enfranchisement .’ 5 

But not a look — not a word — not a syllable, — implied peculiar sig- 
nificance or understanding between himself and his host. — He pro- 
bably passed, to those elderly sovereigns, as some protege to whom 
Osalez deigned to extend no more than the protecting notice of ad- 
mitting him occasionally to his board ; and each in succession took 
wine with him in the encouraging manner with which they would 
have patronized a school boy at home for the holidays. They re- 
frained not Irom their usual discourse in mistrust of the presence of 
this one accidental stranger ; neither did they seek to find in him 
more than a listener ; but continued to treat of kings and ministers 
in all quarters of the globe, — as so many implements for coining in 
the hands of those real masters of the world, — the money -mongers 
of its various exchanges. 

It was interesting, however, to young Annesley to perceive that 
there was nothing of assumption or braggarty in their self-assertion. 
In ihe House of Commons, in the Clubs, at the convivial meetings 
of the West End, he had been often disgusted by the tone of flip- 
pancy or bullying assumed whenever the deferences of life were 
laid aside. But here, all was decorous as in the Upper House w T ith 
the Bench of Bishops and the Woolsack as dead w-eights upon the 
buoyancy of human nature. It was the magnanimous exercise of 
power, like the quiet lifting of an elephant’s trunk to sport with the 
child it might, if angered, encoil and crush. These great financial 
op rators, whose eleetrie wires communicated from one end of the 
world to the other, would as scon have thought of jesting over the 
bankruptcy of kingdoms, or the necessities of princes, of which 
they were treating, — as the Home Department would think of per- 
petrating a pun over a death-warrant ! 

Still less, however, were they grave or pompous ; and many m 


BROTHER JONTHAN EXTRA. - ABEDNEGO. 


fa 


amusing- anecdote transpired connected with the statesmen or mea- 
sures of the day, that flight have told less well elsewhere, but derived 
peculiar charm from the authenticity certified by the genius loci. 

For Anne -ley was beginning to understand with whom he was 
dipping in the dish. — The names by which he heard his companions 
mutually addressed, were those he knew to be a'ttached to loans and 
ether gigantic financial operations, and saw announced by the papers 
as having audiences of the Chancellor of the Exchequer; — men 
whose names, inscribed on a sheet of paper, create a railroad that is 
to facilitate the intercommunication of kingdoms, — an Argentine Re- 
public, a county hospital, or an insurreetion in C >chin China ! 

Over a dessert, the forced fruit, lime ice, and Chateau tte of 
which would have caused the Duke of Rochester’s eyes to glisten, 
the host and his most potent, grave, and reverend Signiors of guests, 
sat gossipping of the State affairs of ihe world, as though their little 
synod constituted the privy-council of the universe. They talked of 
the politics of Europe as men talked of the tactics of a game of 
chess, over which they have the disposal ; — of sovereigns, as if in 
their degrees the ivory or ebony or box-wood pieces of the board. 
The identity «of such privileged portions of human nature was evi- 
dently unimportant to their calculations. — There was no Nicholas, — 
no Francis, — no Frederick William to the high-priest of Mammom; 
but in their places, Prussia, Hardenberg and Co , — Austria, Metter- 
nich and Co., — Russia, Nesselrode and Co. Of money itself, under 
the august name of Capital, they trea’ed as he had never h^ard it 
treated before, — as an end and not a mean ; — and millions sounded 
in their mouths less than the pennies, or even the pounds, he was ac- 
customed to hear betted elsewhere. In the arguments of that singu- 
lar coterie, there was matter to drive thrice as many Political Econo- 
mists to distraction ! 

In the midst of the discussion, young Annesley could not for- 
bear reverting with degree of amazement, amounting almost to the 
ludicrous, to the sense of compassion which he had, so short a time 
before, accosted the old money lender of Greek street; and the ter- 
rors with which, in his necessity for a paltry loan of £300, he had 
undergone his cross-examination in the presence of the redoubtable 
A, O ' 

CHAPTER XII. 

The pleasantries with which Basil Annesley had been of late 
persecuted by his brother officers concerning his unaccountable in- 
timacy with and predilection for the notorious Money-lender, would 
unqucition bly have been renewed on the evening of th^ day in 
question, could they have surmised the scries of strange vents 
which brought him back flushed and agitated to the Tower, a few 
seconds before the expiration of the garrison hour. But he offered no 
explanations; and having two or three important pieces of political 
news to communicate, (acquired among the pro, hets of the Stock 
Exchange.) besides an anecdote of the Dowager Colonel’s having 
fallen on His nose behind the scenes of one of the theatres, to the 
displacement of his hat, wig, and proboscis, — they let him off without 
much seven y of cross-examination, and scarcely a single reproach. 

It was not til! alone, and in the silence of the night, that Basil be- 
gan to inquire of himself whether all that had of late befallen him, 
were not the unreal mockery of a dream ; — whether there really ex- 
isted either an Abednego the Money-lender, or a high bred and luxuri- 
ous banker or stock-broker, or bill-broker, named Osalez. 

Perplexed by his reflections and fevered by unusual excess, he was 
unable to close his eyes ; or if he closed them for a moment it was 
to be further derided and perplexed by the confused dreams of indi- 
gestion ; wherein his mot her and Esther were intermingled with the 
dying man in the old attic in Westminster, and the Jew usurer who 
had relieved his pecuniary difficulties and bestowed upon him the 
richest t, eisure in his possession. 

Nor did the morning sun bring its usual comfort and enlighten- 
ment. The more lie reflected on these mysteries, the more they ap- 
peared to darken. He had lost all confidence in his own pow ers of 
r erception, — in his own powers of volition. This strange man, — this 
ignis fatuus ■ — this Djmn,— this mysterious influence, — appeared to 
enfold his destinies as with the coil of a Boa-constrictor, and the 
capability of crushing him at will; — and under this persuasion, en- 
dured in solitary irritation day after day, the health of Basil, which 
had been almost re-established, again began to give way. Ho was 
soon confined to his room, — wanting either powder or inclination to 
cross the drawbridge: nor was this any source of regret to him. Denied 
access to the house of Verelst — too proud to seek it again, — to that 
of a man whom he now recognised as rich and powerful, and on 
whom he had the claim of benefits conferred,— he had not the small- 
est. inclination to quit his retirement. 

It was a severe season. Though the Spring was approaching, a 
six- weeks’ frost filled the clubs of St. James’s street with hunting 
men, and augmented the wisdom and divisions of parliament with 
the number of its county members; yet Bisil was perfectly satisfied 
to remain day after day in his quarters. To beguile his ennui , he 
took opportunity to renew, as Esther had often entreated him, his 
study of the German language, which, since his departure from 
Heidelberg, he had suffered to grow rusty. For he had been struck, 


at his dinner in Bernard street, with the advantage which those puis- 
sant old men seemed to derive from their familiarity with modern 
languages. French, Italian, and German, were familiar to them as 
English; (a circumstance strongly indicative of their own foreign 
origin ;) and they appeared to verify the axiom of Charles V., that 
“ so many languages as a man possesses, so many times is he a man.” 

It was in vain his brother officers reviled him by the name of 
“ sap,” and protested that Nancy was going to adveitise for a place 
as finishing-governess. He adhered to his seclusion and submitted 
to be thought a bore rather than join in pleasures for which he had 
lost all inclination. 

The insight he had incidentally obtained from A. O. into the pro- 
spects of YVilberton and John Maitland, rendered it doubly disagree- 
able to him to see them indulging in habits of expense unsuited to 
their means ; and as they refused to listen to his remonstrances, and 
at first replied to them with repartees concerning the views and prin- 
ciples he was contracting among his Je^feh associates, which he was 
compelled to silence by a serious explanation, there was nothing for 
it but to adhere to his own pursui Island pass for a churl. 

Meanwhile tire old artist, VerelsfT who had denied his benefactor 
even a single interview, was now reaping the rich benefits which the 
facilities afforded by Basil’s introductions, had conferred upon him; 
and the advantageous bargains made by him under the management 
and protection of Basil Annesley were beginning to bring forth their 
fruits. They v, 7 ere getting in some degree above the world ; and the 
comfort of seeing her family better clothed, better fed, and without 
fear for the morrow, had done more to restore strength and courage 
to Mrs. Verelst than all the previous advice andmiedicaments of the 
physicians. Moreover, there was prospect of improvement for the 
little household. Placed at ease by the payment of his military 
sketches, the artist had ventured to give once more the reins to his 
imagination in the completion of a picture representing the Johanna 
von Orleans of Schiller bidding adieu to her native valley; which 
had been admitted, among cartloads of woiks of art more or less 
deserving, to the honor of the Exhibition. For the twentieth time in 
his life, therefore, the artist was smoothing the plumage of new- 
fledged Hope,— a bird of promise which, like the Phceaix, has the 
faculty of giving birth from its ashes to a successor fresh and fair as 
the one of recent extinction. 

The girls, meanwhile, had very much regretted the absence of 
Basil Annesley. To them, his disappearance from among them was 
fraught with mystery. The} 7 knew nothing of his being quartered 
in the Tower ; they knew 7 nothing of their father’s reasons for deny- 
ing the young man admittance to their society; and though acci- 
dentally apprized that their former friend appeared from lime to time 
at the door with inquiries after the health of their mother, this total 
change in their habits of intercourse increased rather than diminished 
their surprise. Salome’s frank expressions of regret at his absence 
had produced from her parents the most chilling reproof ; and ever 
since, by tacit consent of all parties, the subject was dropped. 

The lodgings inhabited by the Verelsts were of such circumscribed 
dimensions that the two girls slept in a small room within that of 
their mother, upon whom they took it in turns to attend, by day and 
night ; so that there was no opportunity for those sisterly confidences 
which, in more splendid households, are the origin of such wanton 
waste of time and sensibility. Nevertheless, Esther sometimes 
found a moment to whisper to Salome that it was strange Basil 
should so suddenly have withdrawn his interest from them; just as, 
occasionally, Salome found means to express to Esther her wonder- 
ment whether it would ever enter into her father’s plans to return to 
Germany ; and whether, even if they went back to their beloved 
Heidelberg, thev might not find the Count von Ehrensteina happy 
husband and father ; and satisfied that, by the gift ol Albert Durcr’s 
sketch, book to his old master, he had discovered all ties of gratitude 
or affection with the family once so dear to him. Each sister offered, 
indeed, to the other such consolation as her philosophy suggested ; 
but both agreed that Basil’s voluntary absence arose from scruples 
of conscience suggesting the danger of encouraging sentiments of 
mutual attachment, winch could only end in disappointment and 
remorse. 

Such was the position of their affairs, and such the monotonous 
tenor of their existence, — (unconnected with the passing events of 
the day by even the pe usal of a newspaper,) when one morning, as 
the artist was standing absoibed before a new canvass, on which he 
was beginning to sketch, with some enthusiasm, the rude outline of 
a new historical picture, he was roused from his reverie by a slight 
touch on the shoulder, and found that a stranger was standing be- 
hind him : — a man of simple but gentlemanly exterior, who, unob- 
served by the artist, had been introduced into the room by the ser- 
vant on the plea of business with her master. 

“ I have the pleasure, I believe, of addressing Mr. Verelst,” said 
he, “ whom I have had more difficulty in tracing out, than ought to 
have been the case with the painter of such works as those I see 
around me.” 

As he spoke, the visiter glanced towards the two pictures from the 
Nibelungen Lied, which still occupied their post of disgrace against 
the wall ; — and the poor simple artist who, .from the seclusion of his 


30 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA. — ABEDNEGO. 


habits of life, was becoming daily less and less a man of the world, 
felt so puzzled by hearing compliments addressed to himself by a 
man of such courtly manners, stood gazing in amazement, as if 
puzzled to determine whether he were not the victim of a mystifiea 

tion. 

44 I have reason to imagine,’* resumed the stranger, “ that a paint* 
ing which I bought nearly a year since, of a picture- dealer of the 
name of Stubbs, (representing the marriage of Cana,) as the work 
of Poussin, is in reality a production of your pencil, — and though I 
plead guilty to having been the dupe of my own ignorance in the 
purchase, — (for after all the detection of the fraud rested with my- 
self) — it grieves me much to believe that, of the price I paid for it, 
(four hundred guineas,) perhaps net a tenth part reached the hands 
of the admirable artist with whom it originated, 0 

44 Not a twentieth part*” rejoined Verelst, with a smile. 44 1 re- 
member the picture only too well. I had grounded great expecta- 
tions upon it ; but was forced, by the necessities of my family, to 
sell it at a moment’s notice for a paltry ten-pound note 1” 

“ Ten pounds !° — reiterated the stranger, shrugging his shoulders. 
44 The rogue, — the robber ! — I had a hard matter to get it from him 
at less than the five hundred guineas he originally asked me. I have 
bought many other pictures of him, at high prices, of some of which 
perhaps you may be able to indicate the true origin, which I am now 
beginning to suspect as bringing £kd discredit upon my connoisseur- 
ship. With this view, sir, I have been making strenuous offorts to 
discover your abode. As some inducement to you to accord me the 
favor of a visit to my collection, I would willingly induce you to 
bring with you the two noble pictures I see on your hands, if, in- 
deed, the value you set on them be not above my reach.” 

As he spoke, the courteous customer began to examine with care 
and interest the pair of pictures, on which the disappointed artist 
had almost ceased to pride himself, or found expectations of profit. 

44 1 once prized these pictures, as a partial man is too apt to prize 
his favorite work !” said Verelst, standing beside his visiter to con- 
template his neglected pictures. “I once rated them at a couple 
of hundred guineas ! But I am sick of the sight of them ; and 
ahould be glad to dispose of them for a quarter of the sum. 

% 4C That were a most unjust self-injury,” observed the stranger, — 
41 particularly where the original appraisement was so modest. On 
the contrary, I shall be most happy to write you a cheque for the full 
amount. You are, in fact, doubly entitled to it, — for I have every 
expectation of obtaining, through your testimony, restitution of the 
price of my pretended Poussin.” 

Verelst began to stammer expressions of surprise and thankful- 
ness ;‘but the visiter interrupted him with a request for a pen and ink. 

44 If you present this draft at Coutts*,° said he, offering to Verelst 
a printed paper he had taken from his pocket-book, u you will find it 
honored : after which, I shall ask you the favor to bring the pictures 
in person to my house.” 

Verelst, having glanced, as well as his confusion would permit, at 
thq name subscribed to the bottom ef the cheque, saw with pride and 

exultation that it was that of the Marquis of ; a nobleman 

honored by the high estimation of artists and men of letters. 

44 If you can so arrange your engagements,” added the marquis, 
— interrupting his acknowledgments, “ you would do me a.i addi- 
tional favor by bringing them at twelve o’clock ; at which hour, you 
would find a vacant place at my breakfast table, and meet there the 
gentleman to whom I am indebted for the discovery of the fraud 
practised upon me, as well of your name and address ; — an enlight- 
ened patron of the arts, doubtless known to you by name, — my 
friend, Mr. Osalez.” 

A faint cry bursting from the lips of the artist’s wife, intimated at 
that moment, for the first time, to the marquis, that a third person 
was present at the interview, and that the easy chair placed beside 
the open window with its back towards them, contained the ema- 
ciated form of Mrs. Verelst, to whose side her husband now rushed 
in tfonsternalion. 

Agitated by a thousand conflicing emotions on learning the tide of 
good fortune which would enable her husband to discharge the obli- 
gations, which had weighed so heavily' on the minds of both, to the 
offending Basil, the poor invalid had been unable to control the re- 
vulsion of feeling occasioned by the discovery that they were in- 
debted for this overpowering benefit to the interposition of A. O. ! 

CHAPTER XIII. 

On returning to his lodgings at the Tower, one evening, after a 
day’s absence the first circumstance communicated to Basil by his 
landlord, — (the retired butler of a noble family,) — was, that a shab- 
by ish looking person had called repeatedly during the day with ear- 
nest inquiries concerning the moment and manner of his arrival. 

44 A gentleman ?” — inquired Basil, who, being out of debt, had less 
apprehension of shabby-looking persons calling with inquiries, than 
might have been the case with Maitland or Wilberton. 

44 Why, I should say, yes, sir, 5 ’ replied the man, 44 though there 
warn’t much matters to boast of in the coat on his back. — But he 
spoke like a person of eddication. 0 

Basil smiled approvingly at the distinction, which did not, however, 


assist his guesses. — At length, it occurred to him, so strongly as to 
bring the color to his face, that the mysterious stranger was most 
likely the Protean Abednego ; a suspicion fully confirmed by the in- 
formation which his minute inquiries now managed to elicit. 

44 And he said he would call again ?” — demanded young Annesley, 

“This very evening, sir, — he said he would be sure to look in this 
evening.” 

And the tone of glee in which the young guardsman hastened to 
give orders that the moment his strange visiter arrived he should be 
admitted into his sitting-room, relieved the mind of the landlord, 
(with w r hom his first floor was a first favorite,) from a suspicion that 
“ a small account,” — a name usually given to a very large one, had 
been the cause of the spontaneous change of color. 

“ I shall come home immediately alter dinner to meet this gentle- 
man,” observed the young guardsman ; “but if by chance he should 
arrive here first, you would infinitely oblige me, Mr. Smith, by detain- 
ing him till I come.” 

Thus adjured, Mr. Smith lost no time in converting the shabby- 
genteel man into a rich uncle of eccentric habits ; and, accordingly, 
when the stranger really made his appearance, he was received with 
all the state and ceremony due to the Ambassador of one of the 
Great Powers ! — Ten minutes only had he been seated, however, in 
the favorite arm chair of Basil beside his shaded reading lamp, when 
the young man, who had hurried home from the house dinner of the 
Club, entered the room. 

“ Verelst — cried he, starting at sight of his unexpected guest ; 
“ this is indeed a most agreeable surprise ! — I was afraid you had dis- 
missed me altogether from your recollection !” 

“ It is not so easy to dismiss those altogether from our recollec- 
tion, Mr. Annesley,” gravely rejoined the old artist, “ towards whom 
we have heavy obligations.” 

“ If such be your only motive for remembering me,’’ cried Basil, 
warmly, 44 God knows I have little desire to occupy a place in your 
memory. Unless remembered as one, towards whom, in a foreign 
country, in sickness and neglect, you did the part of a kinsman, — 
one whom you admitted to sit before your household fire, one to whom 
you conceded almost the privileges of a son, one who has never ceas- 
ed to regard you as a father, — I would fain be utterly forgotten.*** 

Basil flung down his hat impetuously on a chair, while uttering this 
tender expostulation ; to which Yerelst replied only by turning away, 
as if seeking for some papers he had placed on the table beside him. — 
But Basil fancied when the old man again addressed him, that there 
was a kindly moisture in his eye, as though his own words had not 
been utterly disregarded. Still, the painter attempted no direct re- 
ply to the appeal. 

“ I am come, sir,” said he, evading the question of such reminis- 
cences, “ with a thankful and rejoicing heart, to discharge the obli- 
gations you so nobly conferred upon me. It would have been easy 
to do so by letter, or through the intervention of a third person : but 
I was unwilling, my dear Mr. Annesley, you should a moment sup- 
pose that, because able to return back the exact tale of monies you 
generously disbursed on my account, I had become unmindful of the 
favor, never to be forgotten, which your timely aid bestowed with 
them on me and mine. — Letters are cold and dry in the expressions 
of such feelings as n©w T swell within my bosom. Nor should I have 
found it easy so to define my own sentiments as to render you sensi- 
ble with what fervor I and mine recognise the extent of our obliga- 
tions, without overlooking the cruel manner in which you have at- 
tempted to force your way into the painful secrets of a family, which 
had withheld nothing else from your participations.” 

“ As I live and breathe, my dear Verelst, 0 cried Basil, eagerly, “ I 
have not the most remote suspicion to what you allude : nor did I 
ever, in your case, or any other, attempt to possess myself unhand- 
somely of the secrets of other people! 0 

The artist gravely shook his head ; and taking from the pocket book 
beside him three notes of .£100 each, placed them in the hand of 
Basil, who had now seated himself on the opposite side of the table. 

“ I am glad you bring me these,” cried Basil Annesley, laying 
them caressly down, “ because it is a proof that you are more prospe- 
rous than wdien I had the happiness of enjoying your society. But 
what is the return of this money compared with that of your friend- 
ship ! I fondly trusted, on seeing you under my roof, that you were 
come to tell me my unknown offence was forgiven : — that you had 
repented your injustice towards me ; — that you were again about to 
open your arms and heart to one who has no desire on earth so urgent 
as to find them unclosed to him as of old. I swear to you, dear sir, 
that never, from the first moment of our acquaintance, have I cherish- 
ed a thought or feeling that was not kindness itself towards you !” 

“ In that case,” repliedJhe artist, evidently much moved, and 
gazing upon the agitated young man with eyes which the tenderness 
of an almost paternal affection filled with tears, — 44 in that case, why 
insult my wife by disclosing to her that you have discovered her fami- 
ly connexion with one who — but no matter I” 

“ On my honor as a gentleman,” cried Annesley, 44 1 have made 
no discoveries, — I have intentionally offered no insult. As regards 
the family connexions of Mrs. Yerelst, she may be, for anything I 
know to the contrary, the daughter of a peer or the daughter of a 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA. — ABEDNEGO. 


31 


peasant! — I never heard, — I never inquired even her name ! It was 
enough for me that I knew her to be everything that is amiable, gen- 
tie, patient in woman, — the kindest of mothers — the most devoted of 
wives. In what way the book, which appears to have constituted 
my ground of offence, could have interested her feelings, I am wholly 
at aloes to surmise. But a strange fatality, however, the very same 
volume proved to be of equal importance in the eyes of persons by a 
singular coincidence of circumstances highly interesting to myself, — 
a Mr. Osalez, a man still more widely and more unsatisfactorily 
kn®wn under the name of A. O.” 

- “You have said it !” — exclaimed Verelst, almost shuddering. 

“ What have I said V 9 inquired the astonished Basil. 

“ You have named the man by whose vindictive persecutions the 
heart of my poor wife was broken !” 

“Persecutions!” — exclaimed Annesley, “ Surely, surely you must 
be mistaken ! — Chance has brought me somewhat familiarly acquaint, 
ed with this singular individual ; and as far as my observation and 
experience reach, I have found him the enemy only of his own com- 
fort ; generous to others, — to himself alone parsimonious ; and even 
then, wilfully and waywardly, — as if in vengeance or atonement!” 

“ What should you know of him compared with my poor Rachael ?” 
faltered the artist, much agitated by recurrence to the subject evident, 
ly so painful. “How should chance have taught you more of his 
character and motives than is known to her ?” 

“ Pardon me !” — replied Basil. “ Circumstances which I will here- 
after explain to you, make it evident to me that it is Mr. Osalez who, 
by a liberal expenditure of time, trouble, and money, has been the 
means of bringing to light those impositions so injurious to your pros- 
pects as an artist, which have been recently exposed in the news, 
papers. It was my intention, had you not visited me to-night, to 
take an early opportunity of apprizing you of the fact.” 

“I am aware of it,” replied Yerelst, coldly. “ The Marquis of 

, by whose munificent patronage I have been enabled to discharge 

my obligations towards you, informed me that it was to Mr. Osalez 
he was indebted for his knowledge of my address. But since acquaint- 
ed with it, — since himself resident in this country, and aware that 
my unfortunate family had been driven hither for refuge, — what but 
the most cruel and revengeful obduracy prevented his offering the 
- - rumba from his table to appease the hunger of his nearest kindred ?” 

Basil Annesley started from his seat to listen ! 

“ Even if disposed to persist in his animosities against myself,” 
resumed Verelst, “what pretext was there for withholding from his 
poor sister the aid that might have assuaged the pangs of sickness, 
and relieved the anxieties of a mother trembling for the d stiny of 
her girls 1” 

Pale as death, and scarcely able to articulate, — Basil could now 
only falter, c: Sister ! — Mrs. Yerelst sister to the notorious, — the in. 
famous A. O. I” 

Verelst appeared surprised in his turn. 

“ A few minutes ago,” remonstrated the artist, “you were advo- 
cating his cause ! — You even assured me that chance had brought you 
familiarly acquainted with circumstances inspiring high respect for 
his charact* r ?” 

“ I repeat it — ” 

“ Yet you apply to his name such reckless epithets as infamous and 
notorious !” interrupted the artist. 

“ Say rather to his calling /’’retorted Basil Annesley. 

“In commercial England, you have surely little right to despise 
it!” — observed Verelst, in some amazement. 

“ Commercial England has her fair and legitimate modes for the 
disposal of Capital,” — obeerved Basil, somewhat nettled. 

“ I had always fancied that Exchange speculators, so long as pros- 
perous, occupied an important position m the monied world !” replied 
Yerelst. “ Without them r how are the finances of kingdoms to be 
carried on ? The father and grand-father of my wife were the weal- 
thiest merchants in Cadiz. Osalez, prospered by the advantages of 
an English education, entertained higher ambitions. On the death 
of his father, he gathered together his enormous capital, and re- 
nouncing the hazards of commerce, attempted a career which, but 
for the accident of his singular personal disappointments, might have 
sufficed for his happiness. Of that period of his life, alas ! it becomes 
me not to speak ; but when enabled, later, to resume his position in 
society, it. was surely insufficient to couple his unblemished name with 
such epithets as ‘ notorious’ or ‘infamous,’ that it became one df the 
most accredited and widely known of those which convulse the Stock 
Exchanges of the various capitals of Europe ?” 

“ Some of the first financiers and most respected men in the coun- 
try, have been stockbrokers,” cried Basil. “ But a Money-lender,— 
an advertising Money-lender !” 

“How mean you ?” — cried Yerelst, growing pale in his turn. 

* “ The money that now lies so unsatisfactorily before me,” observed 
Basil, “ enables me to inform you without further scruples of delicacy, 
that I should have been exposed to some personal difficulty by the pay- 
ment of the bills I accepted in your favor, but for having raised the sum 
in demand by the assistance of a common usurer, — whom I then be- 
lieved to be a Jew, and knew only by his ill repute in the world,— 
under the opprobriated name of A. O. !” 


“ And these inconveniencies — this hazard you incurred so generous- 
ly for our sake!” — cried the artist, seizing his hand, and losing all 
interest in the disclosure more immediately concerning his family, on 
discovering the real amount of his obligation to Basil. “ Fool that I 
was ! — How little, how very little did I conjecture the truth ! — I 
fancied that you were obliging me out of the overflowings of an 
abundant fortune, — and even then, was grateful! — But that you 
should have hazarded for our sake the shame of the spendthrift, — the 
cares of the prodigal ! — That you should have been forced into con- 
tact with the vile and degraded. Ah ! Basil — oh ! Mr. Annesley ! — 
this touches me to the quick !” 

And reading in the expression of his young friend’s countenance a 
degree of emotion almost equal to his own, Verelst, without further 
effort to contain his feeelings, threw himself upon the shoulder of 
Annesley and wept like a child. 

“ And we presumed to find fault with you ?’’ — faltered the artist, 
raising his head after some moments of absorbing agitation. “We 
dared to condemn you ! — to call you proud, — to suspect you of an in- 
tention to offend and insult us !” 

“You cannot surely have been so unjust !” cried Basil, startling 
from his embrace. “ Surely your wife — your daughters — ” 

“ My wife could place no other interpretation upon your conduct 
in suddenly placing before her a book, formerly the property of, and 
bearing the names of her father and brother ; by the former of whom 
she had been cast off on account of her improvident marriage, — by 
the latter of whom she was visited with still bitterer perseverance of 
vengeance.” 

“ I have only to reiterate my assurances that I had not the most re- 
mote suspicion of the nature of the inscription or the meaning of the 
initials,” — said Annesley ; “ and that I borrowed the work from my 
mother’s library, with no other object than to afford you entertain- 
ment. How it even came there, must be the subject of close and, I 
fear, vexatious inquiry hereafter. Very little, alas! did I surmise 
your kinsmanship with a man so disgraced in the eyes of the world 
as the individual whose initials (as I then supposed by the effect of 
chance) were inscribed therein.’’ 

“ And yet,” said Ferelst, “ you assure me that you were aware of 
the interposition of Osalez in my professional career ?” 

“ Still, believing you to be utter strangers to each other ! — I fanci- 
ed he was interesting himself in your behalf, as he would have done 
in that of any other man of genius lying under the scourge of evil 
fortune. But advantageously as I am prepared to think of Abednego 
in comparison with those who judge him only as a Jew, — a miser, — 
an extortioner, — there are revolting mysteries both in his character 
and circumstances, which I am wholly unable to solve. The more I 
ponder on all I know of him, the more I become perplexed by that 
which I am unable to understand. Atone moment, I believe him to 
be one of the greatest, — at another, the meanest of human beings. In 
him all extremes appear united : — opulence and penury, — generosity 
and baseness, — enlightenment and ignorance, — liberality and preju- 
dice, — tenderness and brutality ! — How am I to reconcile all this V 9 

“ But during the intimate intercourse you appear to have held to- 
gether,” demanded the artist, “ did Osalez never become aware of 
your interest in my professional fortunes ? — Nor give you to under- 
stand the bond of kindred blood uniting him with my wife ?” 

“ Never! — never in the slightest degree !” cried Basil Annesley. 
“Yet, now I think of it, I remember hearing him refer to your posi- 
tion as an indigent artist : a proof that the misfortunes of his excel- 
lent sister must have been fully known to him.’’ 

“ Till within a few weeks,” observed Yerelst, “ we were utterly 
ignorant of his social position in this country ; and aware of his an- 
tipathy, and dreading further persecution at his hands, my wife had 
not courage to address him with representations of the abject nature 
of our own. 

“ It was, thanks to that very picture-dealer whosejtnavery has 

been the means of presenting me to the Marquis of , (from whom 

I have already received orders that will keep my easel in full activity 
for years to come, and at a rate of remuneration exceeding my most 
enthusiastic anticipations,) — I had grounds for conjecturing that a 
picture of mine, — a design from the ( Notre Dame’ of Victor Hugo, 
— had fallen into the hands of the wealthy brother of my wife. Even 
then, I knew not his abode, — I perceived not his riches and conse- 
quence. Nay, I believed him to have fallen considerably from his 
high estate, till apprized yesterday, by my noble patron, of his pros- 
perity. Little did his lordship imagine -when apologising to me at 
his break fast- table this morning, for the absence of the enlightened 
patron of the arts to whom he was indebted for his knowledge of my 
work?, that he was talking to me of a brother !” 

“ More irreconcileable incongruities!” — exclaimed Basil, greatly 
depressed by his discovery of a connexion which he knew would be 
more fatal to the interests of his affection, with his mother, than 
than the fact that his beloved Esther was a teacher, and the daugh- 
ter of an artist, — inasmuch as a mere remote allusion to Jewis par- 
tialities, had been the cause of driving Lady Annesley to frantic ex- 
asperation. 

“ That very picture of the Esmeralda,” resumed the artist, “ affordg 
further proof of the contrariety and eccentricity of character of poor 


32 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA. — ABEDNEGO. 


Osalez : — nay, but for my certainty of h ; s infirmities of mind, 1 should 
be wholly unable to account for such inconsistency. While avoiding 
or injuring his sister and her family, he was induced, it seem?, to give 
hundreds of pounds for a work of inconsiderable merit, simply 
because the principal figure isp likeness of his once-loved Rachael 1” 
li Far more so of her daughter,” added Basil, in a lower voice 
“You knew not my dear wife in her days of youth and beauty i 5 ’ 
faltered the artist. “The patient invalid, — the smiling drudge — 
the humble artist’s wife; presents but a poor shadow of the wor- 
shipped, the lovely, the triumphant Senora Osalez, who could not 
pass from her father’s carriage to the steps o{ the church or theatre, 
but the idlers of Cadiz crowded to feast their eyes on her more than 
oriental beauty, — endowed as she was with the intelligence and ac 
complishments of Europe, yet glowing with the ripjer tints of the 
Sunny South.’* gfe 

“ I have seen all this, sir,un your daughters,” again hesitated Basil. 

“ Esther and Salome are lovely girls, as well as the most duteous 
of daughters,” observed Verelst, with deep feeling; “ but neither the 
one nor the other of them deserves comparison with her mother at 
the period when she forsook the gorgeous mansion of her fa her, to 
become the bride of the enthusiastic German artist, who dedicated to 
her beauty every impulse of a fervid soul, and had, alas ! nought 
beside to offer to her acceptance. The Marquis informs me,” added 
Verelst, aftera long pause, during which he seemed laboring to over- 
come the struggle cf his feelings, — “that large as was the price 
given by Osalez for my Esmeralda, he has offered him double the 
money to part with it, but in vain. I cannot help fancying that, in 
spite of his apparent indifference to his sister’s welfare, Abednego 
was unwilling her portrait should pass into the hands of a stranger.” 

t( That can hardly have been the case,” observed Basil, fancying 
he Was about to flatter the self love of the art st. “ On the contrary, 
it must have been the intrinsic value he discerned in the execution of 
the picture, that rendered him so tenacious ; since it was from his 
own hands, and as a free gifi, that I obtained this copy.” 

While thus explaining himself, Basil drew forth from his bosom 
where, by day and night, it was fondly treasured, his enamel copy of 
the Esmeralda ! 

” What means this ?” — cried the astonished Verelst, regarding at 
first sight the miniature in no other light than a portrait of his wife. 

14 Say, — say ’ — what means this ? — The likeness of my poor Rachael 
in your possession ?” 

The explanations rendered necessary by the emotion of Verelst, 
aroused Basil Annesley to a sense of-his own imprudence. It was 
impossible to give a coloring to his singular value for that lovely face, 
otherwise than startling to the painter. 

(< And you have been wearing it thus, then, — wearing it next your 
heart — wearing it as we treasure only the gift of affection, the pledge 
of fidelity !” cried Verelst ; “ and all the while we were accusing you 
of an intent to mortify us, — of coldness, — of- — ” 

“ Spare, spare me these vexatious truths !” cried Basil, eagerly. 

“ To you, ’ resumed Verelst,* after having hurriedly examined the 
beautiful execution of the miniature, (and noticed how singularly it 
recalled the features of those who were dearest to him, even while 
realizing one of the brightest creations of the magic of romance,) 
t( to you it doubtless serves to retrace, in combination, both young 
and old of the grateful family of the artist on whom you have con- 
ferred such generous obligations.” 

Basil Annesley struggled for a moment with hie feelings. However 
afraid of alarming the pride and suscepiibilily of Verelst, he would 
not submit to such a misconstruction of his sentiments. He satisfied 
himself however, by adding in a subdued voice — “It serves at least 
to recall to me the face which unites in my estimation all that is 
fairest, holiest, and dearest in human nature.” 

The simple artist listened with delight, hut wholly without en- 
lightenment. It seemed to him the most natural thing in the world, 
that his old pupil, his generous friend, should love Esther and Salome, 
and pronounce them dear and holy, — they, whom he had known as 
children and appreciated in their womanly discharge of filial duty. — 
But that he should love either of them singly and separately, or one 
of them more than the other, never occurred to poor Verelst ! 

“ You have received a commission then, from the Marquis ?” in- 
quired Annesley, by way of giving a new turn to the conversation. 

“ A commission that delights me!” cripd the painter with enthu- 
siasm ;’* for it will enable me to realize my highest ambitions ! — I am 
to paint in fresco the new gallery of his castle in the North ; — a series 
of designs from the English history ! — For this, by the way, I must 
read as well as paint.” 

“But by such an cn gag emeu t, you will be compelled to remove 
your whole family from town !” cr.ied Basil, in a torse of consterna- 
tion, on beholding his newly-created castl^e-in-the-air precipitated in 
a moment to the ground. “ Under such circumstances you will &tand 
in need of funcl^previous to receiving the remuneration due to you ; 
and I earnestly entreat you, as a friend on whom you have conferred 
obligations, and who has consequently a claim to priority of service 
in return, to appropriate the notes you have forced upon me to your 
own use. At some luture time, when you become rich, (as you now 
cannot fail to do,) you shall pay the money back to me. I promise 


you that it will be an act of charity so to secure it ; for nearly a year 
will elapse before it becomes due to A. O., 1 r< m whom I boirowed it 
on interest. ; and in the interim, if lying idle in nr.y hands, it might lead 
me into a ihousand scrapes. It might teach me to become a prodi- 
gal,— a gambler, — a coxcomb, — heaven knows what!— Money, you 
know, my oear Verelst, is the corrupter of all human hearts!” 

“An axiom of the truth of which my own experience, heaven 
knows, has availed little to persuade me ! ’— said the poor artist, with 
a hitter smile. “ Your arguments, my dear Mr. Annesley, are kind 
as they are specious. But my noble patron has rendered your assis- 
tance nebdhss. Aware ol the difficulties to be encountered by a 
poor painter of historical pictures, in such matter-of-fact days as the 
present, he has generously presented me with a couple of hundred 
pounds in advance. I Jfhi rich, my dear young friend,— rich,— rich, -- 
I was about to say rich as a Jew— but that the word is in utter dis- 
taste in my family ! Trust me, I am fully enabled to remove them 
all to the North in ease and comfort.” 

« But surely,” cried Basil, horror-struck at such aprorpect, “surely 
so long a journey, with such uncertain prospects at the close, will 
be disadvantageous to poor Mrs. Verelst, whose infirm state appears 
to demand the utmost care and consideration ?” 

“ Rachael would suffer twenty times as much, my dear sir, by 
separation from h< r husband. As to accommodations, the Marquis 
has assigned to our use a suite of apartments in the castle.” 

Here was a new sou ce of anxiety for Basil ! — Esther,— his own 
Esther, exposed to the injurious admiration which her beauty must 
necessarily call forth in such a house! 

“Surely,” said he, attempting a new line of argument., “such an 
interruption to the engasements of the Miss Verelsts ^ 

11 Engagements?”— interrupted the proud father, with enthusiasm. 

“ You surely do not suppose that, now I am able to earn bread for 
them, I will allow them io waste their precocious talents in teaching 
idiotic children or languid Misses ?— No, no, no !— No more engage- 
ments for my girls !— It is one of my chief spurces of joy and triumph 
on this occasion, that, henceforward those dear children may live for 
the enjoyment of life,— for the embellishment, of life,— for the delight 
of others, as ever, ever, of their fond and^ happy parents !— No, no ! — 
No more engagements for Salome and Esther Verelst. 

This intelligence, so fatal to the hopes which the young man had 
formed since his reconciliation with Verelst, moved him to silence. 

Shocked by his sudden change of countenance, Verelst was start- 
ing forward with inquiries into the nature of his seizure, when at 
that moment the door opened $nd; unannounced and unaccompa- 
nied, there appeared on the thresh d d the striking figure of—A- * 

CHAFTE^XIV. 

It was now the turn of Verelst to change countenance ; and a suc- 
cession of strong emotions weVe rapidly portrayed on the open phy- 
siognomy of the painter, incaoable of artifice or disguise. Surprise, 
vexation, satisfaction, perplexity, — obtained, by turns tire mastery. 
There were tears in his large grey eyes;— there was determination in 
the. lines surrounding the firmer and more expressive mouth. 

His brother-in-law, on the other hand, betrayed not the slightest 
touch of feeling- Master of himself, hardened to habits of dissimula- 
tion, whatever emotions might be swelling in his heart, thecounte- 
nance of Abednego was undisturbed. Though apprized that Basil 
was engaged with Verelst, he had still sought the inttiview. Nay, 
it soon became apparent that his visit was produced by the expecta- 
tion of finding his brother-in.law with his young friend. 

On recovering from the shock occasioned by his sudden entrance, 
Verelst, while Osalez gave his hand to young Annesley, (who, de- 
pressed and desperate, was scarcely sensible to his mode of saluta- 
tion,) had snatched his hat and was preparing to quit the room... But 
the unwelcome guest interposed ere he could reach the door. 

“ Hear me bef >re you go !” said Osalez, in a firm voice. “ I came 
hither for the express purpose of meeting you. In the presence of a 
mutual friend was a fit spot for our interview.” 

It was now the turn of Verelst to exhibit composure ! 

“ Had I been aware of your intentions,” said he, coldly, “ I would 
certainly have deferred my visit to Mr. Annesley till a future mo- 

“ You could not!” was the cool reply of Osalez. “ It would have 
been impossible for you to sleep this night, with a sum of money in 
your possession which you knew to be the property of yonder hoy. 
I know ye both !— The same hot-headed enthusiasm that prompted 
him to pledge his name, his peace of mind, his narrow income, to a 
Money-lender, to obtain the means of obliging you, would render it 
impossible for you to close your eyes, while unnecessarily remaining 

his debtor.” . , . „ , 

“ I ha-ve, I find, to thank you for the means of repaying lnm, ob- 
served Verelst, somewhat softened— “ For that favor, accept my ac- 
knowledgments But it does not, it cannot efface from my recollec- 
tion \ our long neglect and unkindness towards the most deserving of 
women. Farewell ’.—Against you we cherish no resentment; but 
there can be neither love nor amity between thine and mine.” 

“ Thine are mine !” replied Abednego, neither abashed nor dis- 
mayed by these bitter reproaches. “ Resist as we may the dictates 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA. — ABEDNEGO. 


33 


of nature, the ocean can no mere dissever from its waves an offend- 
ing drop, than your wife and children expel from their veins the 
blood that is kindred with my own.” 

“ Neither are we the first of those so conjoined by nature,’ 5 inter- 
rupted Verelst, “ who have converted kindred blood to drops of gail ! 
Again I say, therefore, accept my thanks and my farewell. Between 
persons so closely united, it must be peace or war. With others 
there might exist a medium of lukewarm good- will, — with us there 
must be love or hatred !” 

4 1 want no medium,” said Osalez, still preventing his departure, 
and with such steadiness, that Basil Annesley, deeply interested in 
the discussion, was driven to despair by the sturdy perseverance of 
Verelst. “ There must be love between up, — there mud be peace! 
— Never too late for peace. Your friend here will tell you,’’ he con- 
tinued, glancing towards Bafil, “ that I have recently wrestled, face 
to face, with Death. At such a moment the truths to which, in health 
and amid the contentions and struggles of life, we close our ears 
and eyes, speak trumpet-tongued to the Soul, and reveal their dread 
decree in characters as legible as those manifested in warning to Bel- 
9 shazzar. I have sinned against you, Verelst. — I have suffered vin- 
dictive feelings, and resentment of a single injury, to efface from my 
bosom those hallowed ties of affection vouchsafed by the Almighty 
for the solace and consecration of human life. — I have allowed your 
officious interposition in my affairs to steel my heart against the suf- 
ferings of a once-loved sister and the children she has born to you. — 
In this, I have greatly offended, and I therefore seek you, in all 
Christian humility, to acknowledge my fault and entreat the favor of 
your forgiveness.” 

Utterly thrown off his guard by this singular self-abasement on the 
part of the haughty and obdurate Abednego, Verelst was so far soft- 
ened as to hesitate. But a moment’s consideration brought before 
him arrew the years of suffering and privation endured by his excel- 
lent wife and lovely children ; and again, he hardened his heart, and 
put forth no answering token to the extended hand of Osalez. * 

i{ You have my full forgiveness, 55 said he — “ Friendship is not a 
thing to start into life spontaneously, on the slight demand of a con- 
verted enemy. The wrongs of my family forbid me to say more : — 
the sense of what is due to your tardy repentance to concede less.” 

Once more the agitated artist made a movement to depart. But 
B&s 1 Annesley now interposed. 

My dear Verelst !” cried he- — “ it is you who are now exhibiting 
a vindictive spirit. How — how can you allow yourself to torture a 
nature so beneficent, so cordial as your own, — in orde*t to assume 
feelings of animosity, which, even if they existed, should be disarm- 
ed by the frank and fervent manner in which the olive-branch is ex- 
ten dod towards you — 5 ’ 

‘ 5 If you only knew, my dear young friend,’ 5 cried the painter, — 
“ what a series — ’ 5 

Si I know, and seek to know nothing on the subject of your quar- 
rel !” hastily interrupted Basil. “But this I know, — that half the 
quarrels and half the resentments of this world, arise from misunder- 
standings, which a few reasonable words would suffice to clear up.” 

“ In this case all is perfectly understood,” replied the artist, coldly; 
— u ' nor are we children, to obey the impulses of momentary passion. 
— Both have brooded upon our wrongs, till mutual hatred has been 
engendered.” 

“ If engendered, — on one side, it has been bitterly atoned, — on 
the other, bitterly repented,” rejoined Osalez, with tears in his eyes. 

“ My dear Verelst!” cried Basil Annesley, deeply moved by wit- 
nessing such profound emotion on the part of men of advanced 
years, — “ half an hour ago, you were pleased to express towards me 
feelings of gratitude and regard. If I have ever served you, and you 
wish to mark your sense of obligation, I beseech you do it at once, 
and efface all trace forever, — by accepting the hand which I sec 
trembling with eagerness to enclasp vour own !” At this appeal, 
Verelst, for the first time, turned his eyes full upon his brother-in- 
law : and either the traces of time and care perceptible in his broken 
frame and withered countenance, or the manifestation of emotions 
which Abednego wa3 at n6 pains to conceal, softened the obduracy 
of the indignant husband ; for, on finding the hand of Osahz placed 
in his, a moment afterwards, by Basil Annesley, he no longer persist- 
ed in rejection. At one moment, both gave a loose to the long-re- 
silted promptings of nature ; and the “ iron tears of Pluto’s cheek 5 ’ 
were emulated in those that fell profusely from beneath the shaggy 
eyebrows of A. 0. 

Basil was about to retire to the adjoining room, leaving the two 
brothers to a more copious mutual explanation. But Osalez prevent, 
ed him. “Nay,” said he, — “ you are as if of our own flesh. Tarry 
and hear all !— I have no secrets, — I wish to have none from you.” 

Amid all his struggles of feeling, Basil could scarcely refrain from 
a smile / To hear A. O. boasting of having no secrets from him ! — 
A. O. whose whole life was a mystery, — whose right hand knew not 
the doings of the left! — A. O., who concentrated in his own person 
half a-dozen separate existences, and uoaccordant fortunes! 

would fain have taken steps towards this reconciliation, many 
months ago, — from the moment of my first acquaintance with this 
improvident boy, your friend Annesley,” resumed Osalez, when at 


length confidentially seated beside Verelst on the sofa, (having re- 
sumed his own self possession long before the simple artist had ceased 
to sob like a child,) — “ blit that I did not choose to approach as a be- 
nefactor the man I wished to conciliate as a brother. I wished you 
to be independent in circumstances, — rich through your own talents 
and endowments, — before I addressed myself to you with overtures 
of good-will, of which the necessities of your family might seem to 
compel your acceptance. Wo have now met upon equal ground ; 
and you have granted me your forgiveness, as a Christian and a kins- 
man, without forfeiting your self-respect. All is as it should be ! — I 
have taken every precaution to spare your pride as well as promote 
my own interest in your affection. And now, tell me — when will you 
propose a visit from me to my sister ? In her infirm condition, we 
must beware of producing agitation, — more especially on the eve of a 
long journey, — if, indeed, after our mutual explanations, you persist 
in fulfilling your engagements to the Marquis.” 

“I will speak to RachaeTthis very night,” replied Verelst, — “ but 
calmly and cautiously. It will require time to prepare her for so 
trying an interview. Years of hardship, — the loss of several chil- 
dren, which she attributes to the same cause, — and positive aliments 
arising from those united causes, have so altered my poor wife, that 
the greatest precaution is indispensable. She is so changed that you 
will not know her.” 

“ I have been many times in her presence within these last few 
months,” said Osalez, nvith a smile. 

“ You are mistaken — quite mistaken! 5 ’ eagerly rejoined the ar- 
tist. — “ She never quits the house. Ask Mr. Annesley ! — She never 
leaves even her own room!’ 5 

“ It was there our interview took place,” calmly rejoined Abednego. 

“Mistaken, — mistaken’” persisted Verelst with a smile, — gently 
shaking his head. “ I promise you that you would not know poor 
Rachael were you to meet !” 

“ She is far less changed, however, than myself,’ 5 replied Osalez ; 
“ since, when we did meet, I recognised her perfectly ; while she, ad- 
dressed me as a stranger ! — Do you remember the person who fetch- 
ed from your rooms the two battle-pieces sold by the scoundrel Stubbs 
to the Duke of Rochester ? 55 

Verelst paused a moment, for consideration. 

“ Perfectly,” said he, at length. “ But that was an old Jew ?” 

“ ft was myself.” 

Tne artist replied by an incredulous smile. 

“ Do you recollect, that when you received the three five- pound 
notes for which you had sold the pictures, or rather, in consideration 
of which you had been robbed of them by the knavish dealer — you 
bade him inform Mr. Stubbs that the original design of the Battle of 
the Standard was still in your hands, having withdrawn it from your 
series of military sketches, as the ground work of the picture in 
question, and produced at the suggestion of a dear friend V ’ 

“ Which dear friend was, I trust, myself?” gaily interupt^d Basil. 

“ But you were not, — you cannot have been that filthy old Jew V 5 
cried the artist, in utter amazement. 

“You have seen me more than once in disguises equally unseem- 
ly, 5 ’ replied Osalez, undisturbed. “ For years past I have placed a 
great gulph betwixt myself and what is called the world ; and when 
once we hazard so bold a step as to fling off the bond of fellowship 
with our brethren, we require the creation of prodigious interests, and 
excitements indeed s trong, to fill up the vacuum. I have long been 
at war with mankind, — as long as they were previously my enemies. 
Out of my sixty years, for thirty did I support their injustice ; and 
during the last thirty I have revenged myself! But he who fights 
single-handed against society, must multiply the guises under which 
he wields his weapons ; and shrink from no means or measures by 
which he can strengthen his cause. For such explanations, howev- 
er, we shall find a time hereafter. Enough that you promise me to 
prepare my poor dear sister to receive me. Basil Annesley will ap- 
prize me of your success; or better still, conduct you to my abode. 
The way to yours I learnt from him ; few people, I suspect, are better 
acquainted with it.” 

The young soldier colored deeply at this hazardous allusion. 

“ I was not aware,” said he, “ of having mentioned to you the ad- 
dress of Mr. Verelst.” 

“ It was from your pictures, which I found in the hands of Stubbs 
and others,” replied Abednego, addressing Verelst, rather than reply- 
ing to his host, <£ that I became aw,are of your being a resident in 
this country. But you may imagine with what care and cunning 
these knaves guarded the scent, so long as you remained a dupe in 
their.,avaricious hands.” 

“ And it was my good friend Mr. Annesley, then, who did me this 
further service,” exclaimeffthe painter, warmly. 

“ Indirectly. I was anxiBus to know the object of a certain levy 
of money which he effected through my means ; and since, whether 
as Osalez the Croesus, or as A. O. t]ie Money-lender, (who created 
Osalez theCioesus,) I have the means of investigating and compar- 
ing all the secrets of the two money markets, (the great and the 
small,) I had no difficulty in discovering that the acceptances he had 
to meet were in favor of one Gerard Verelst, ^.a painter living near 
South Audiey-street. The rest was readily ascertained, — the minia- 


34 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA. — ABEDNEGO. 


ture I presented to him affords sufficient proof how soon and how 
thoroughly I made myself master of the secrets of the family.” 

Basil Annesley gasped for breath. There was no guessing where 
the indiscreet revelations of xAbednego might stop. 

“ And now,’’ said he, regardless of the embarrassment he had "ere- 
ated, “ I must wish you good night. Though I have found time to 
say much that may have appeared to one or both of you superfluous, 

I am in the greatest haste and some anxiety 7 . I have business to 
transact before midnight, that dearly concerns the happiness of a fa- 
mily whose ruin,-— whatever I may do to avert the fatal crash, — will 
ere long produce nearly as much sensation in the bedlam called the 
beau monde , as that of The Duke of Rochester. I should leave these 
Maitlands, in fact, to the consequences of their folly, but that one 
of the girls has managed to soften my old heart by the eager interest 
she takes in the fortunes of a certain brother officer of her brother, 
named Basil Annesley.” 

“Is all up then with Lord Maitland ?** demanded Basil in a tone of 
regret, without noticing his allusion. 

“His bills have been hawking about the town this year past,” re- 
plied A. O , with one of his former sarcastic smiles. “ Her ladyship 
is at Almacks, while her signature is in the hands of the Jews.” 

After a few more bitter allusions to the improvidence of the fami- 
ly, he was gone ; nor did Basil much regret that Verelst, in his ea- 
gerness to communicate to his family the singular reconciliation which 
had taken place, instantly followed. When the aitist had taken his 
departure, his young friend picked up from the floor the three hun- 
dred pound notes which, amid the varied interests of the foregoing 
conversation, had fallen unnoticed to the ground. 

“ Would any one imagine,” said he, with a mournful smile, as he 
placed them in his desk, “ how short a time has elapsed since the pos- 
sion of these notes appeared to be a matter of life and death? And 
would not any one believe that, instead of the beggarly fellow I am, 
I had the wealth of the Indies, or of Abednego Osalez, at my com- 
mand ! But, alas! what further care have I for money? Verelst is 
now prosperous. As to my poor mother, though straightened in 
means, her pride is so much greater than her poverty, that I am con- 
vinced she prefers dispensing with the luxuries of life to being in- 
debted for them to any mortal living, — even to her son !” 

As these reflections arose in his mind, he recalled with surprise the 
half- forgotten fact of her being in possession of a book of a pecu- 
liar nature, which Verelst stated to have been the property of his 
wife’s father and brother. By what pos&ible concatenation of events 
was this to be accounted for ? Once more, he was compelled to ask 
himself, through what fortuitous chain of incidents the daughter of 

Lord L , and widow of Sir Bernard Annesley, could have been 

brought into connection with the family of A. O. ? 

Summer was at hand, and he resolved to make the inviting nature 
of the weather a pretext for a short visit to Barlingham. The dis- 
cussions which had already arisen between him and Lady Annesley 
would afford ground for such interrogations as could not fail to throw 
light upon the mystery. It was time that all relating to Abednego 
Osalez should be cleared up ! He would no longer be silenced like a 
child. Ha was resolved to confront the utmost indignation and 
harshness on the part of the rigid recluse, rather than remain a mar- 
tyr to the mysteries by which he now felt himself to be encompass- 
ed. The more lie had achieved towards fathoming their darkness, — 
the more he seemed involved in new perplexities ! 

It was, however, an inexpressible comfort to Basil, that his confi- 
dence in his old friend was in process of restoration. To find him 
openly avowing his disguises, and glorying in his eccentricity, was far 
more satisfactory than to fancy him the confederate of knaves and 
impostors ; and even the certainty of his obstinate estrangement 
from a sister so worthy as Mrs. Verelst, was nothing in comparison 
with the pain of supposing him in league with Stubbs the picture- 
dealer, in a double imposition upon the Duke of Rochester and the 
unfortunate Verelst. 

The first person who accosted Basil Annesley on the following 
day, as he was about to enter his club, was John Maitland ; who, in- 
stead of the nod that usually passed between them, surprised him by 
a sudden and fervent grasp of the hand. 

“ Come a little way down St. James’s-street with me, Nan,” said 
he, booking his arm into that of Basil, and proceeding with him, lei- 
surely, towards Brooke’s. “You area good fellow,” he resumed, as 
soon as they were out of hearing of Wilberton, and one or two others 
who were clustered round the door. “ Believe me, I feel the full 
force of our obligations !” 

“ What obligations ?” demanded the astonished Basil. 

“Oh! you need not affect ignorance. No occasion to be afraid 
now of my pleasantries on the subject of . A - O. I am as fully aware 
as you can desire that suck ‘ a friend ilrneed is a friend indeed.’ — 
Yesterday afternoon, my dear fellow, my prognostications were ful- 
There was an execution m our house. A pleasant thing, eh ? 
for ner ladyship and the girls, to see bailiffs sitting in the hall 1 ” he 
continued with a swelling bosom. “ However, it is partly their own 
fault, il that be any comfort ! All the blame was not on my father’s 
side — though they choose to place it there !” 

“ I am heartily sorry, — sincerely sorry,” Basil was beginning. 


“ Come, ton;c! don’t talk so like the dowager. colonel !’’ cried John 
Maitland; “ Carr was heartily sorry— sincerely sorry ! — but, hang it, 
you were better than sorry !” 

“ What was J, then ?” inquired Basil, shrugging his shoulders 
at the levity of his friend, “ for, upon my soul, I have not the least 
idea !” 

“ Of course not, — because you , forsooth, have not the slightest ac- 
quaintance with A. O. ! It was not you who interceded in behalf of 
my family ! It was not your liking for Lucy, (who by the w r ay is 
half out of her wits with thankfulness,) which induced you to deter- 
mine the man whom you will not own as friend or acquaintance, but 
over whom you have ail the influence of a master over a slave, or a 
Czar or*Muscovy over a colonel of Hussars, to ccme forward once 
more to my father’s relief, — discharge^ the writ, — and (on condition 
of his letting the house in Arlington. street, and retiring to Maitland 
Park,) re-establish the family affairs? Oh, no! It was not by any 
means you who did us this excellent service !” 

“ A3 I live and breathe, no !” cried Basil Annesley, with such ear- 
nestness as to cause his companion to stop short for a moment. — 

“ Had I the power, indeed, I would have done as much, or twice as 
much for a friend. But I have not a guinea in the world ! : ’ 

“ My dear Nan, it is too late to recommence with this flummery !” 
cried Maitland, almost angry at his seeming mistrust. “ This man, 
(l beg his pardon, this gentleman — for a gentleman, God knows, he 
has shown himself to us ,) owned to me, in so many words, that he 
! was acting at your instigation ; or, more correctly speaking, with a 
view of affording you pleasure.’’ 

“He has afforded me sincere pleasure by his liberality,” rejoined 
Basil. “ But he must have divined my wishes by preternatural means, 
for I swear I never expressed them ; nor, on my word of honor as a 
gentleman, have I any claims upon him that could justify, my at- 
tempting to influence his conduct in the smallest particular.” 

Jol^n Maitland replied by another incredulous smile. — But they 
had now returned to the Club door. 

“ Not a word of all this before the others !” was the parting injunc- 
tion of John Maitland; — a warning altogether superfluous, — for no- 
thing would have induced Basil to advert, in the presence of his bio— 
i ther officers, to any subject even remotely involving mention of a 
name so repellent as A. O. 

Before night, Basil had managed ta obtain a week’s leave of ab- 
sence, with the view 7 of accomplishing bis visit to Barlingham ; and 
despatched a letter to his mother entreating her sanction to his 
journey. 

The weather was now as fine as London weather ever pretends to 
be ; — for even the height of summer is scarcely so enjoyable in the 
metropolis as those delicious days of opening May, before the young 
leaves have found out into w T hat a world ef soot and smoke they 
have budded : but bear their verdure in purity and freshness, like 
the bright and unsullied countenance of a sinless child. The skies 
were blue, — the leaves green, — the sparrows chiding gaily in park 
and square, as if making the most of their time, ere London was 
covered once more with dust and ashes, — her leaves seared and shri- 
velled, — her atmosphere obscured. At such a season, it is difficult 
for the buoyant heart of two and-twenty to sink under the pressure 
of care ! 

At the instigation of its own pulses, it hopes when hope there is 
none, — it loves, when prospect of happiness there is none! The 
j spring-tide of life dances wildly and irresistibly within its bosom. 
No ! despair is indeed difficult for the young. 

Basil usually disliked being on guard ; from the mere restraint of 
being tied to time and place ; — getting up earlier than usual, and be- 
ing restricted for the day to such pastimes as a lounge in the British 
Gallery. Unaffected and unpretending, he had no taste for parading 
himself and his uniform in St. Jamas’s street, an appetite that rarely 
i extends beyond the first, fortnight of escape from cubhood to ensign- 
hood ; during which, a young guardsman is privileged to astonish the 
waiting-women at Grange’s and melt half the Merific Balsam in 
Willis’s shop, with the splendor of his scarlet and gold. 

But on the day in question, howbeit the evening before he had 
congratulated himself on the certainty thus afforded of escape from 
the visits of Osalez or Verelst, no sooner was he established at St. 
James’s, than he became insupportably irritated by his enthralment. 
He was, in fact, burning with desire to know all that was passing 
! under the roof of the artist For the first time, the brother officers 
j on guard with him found him absent and unsociable. Colonel Lof- 
. tu 3, (John Maitland being absent,) had ventured to banter him upon 
his flirtation with Lucy ; and the pain which her manifest partiality 
was supposed to cause to their friend Blencowe. But the fraetious- 
ness of Basil’s replies soon convinced them that he was in no mood 
to be trifled with. They saw that he was thoroughly out of temper. 

The first thing intimated to Basil on reaching his lodgings after 
coming off guard the following morning, was, that Mr. Osalez had 
called upon him once or twice in the course of the preceding day, 
manifesting great anxiety to see him. 

“ And why did you not tell him I was on guard ?” — demanded 
young Annesley ; to whom it appeared as easy a matter to pay a visit 
at St. James’s, as at his private residence. 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA. — ABEDNEGO. 


35 


u I did, sir; but the gentleman seemed put out, and muttered 
something about 4 puppies* and 4 coxcombs,’ which made me think 
it unlikely he would drive further,” replied the prim Mr. Smith. 

44 He was in his carriage, then V * inquired Basil. 

44 He was, sir.” 

“ And alone ?” 

44 No, sir. There was another old gentleman with him, whom I 
could not rightly see. But both of them seemed much disappointed 
at not finding you.” 

After receiving this intelligence, Basil, while dressing and break- 
fasting, resolved to proceed immediately to the house of Osalez. — 
Something regarding the interests of Verelst might be in agitation, 
in which his assistance was needful. But to which zynong the many 
residences of his Protean friend was he now to address himself ? 

44 As he called in his carriage,” mused the young guardsman, 44 he 
came, I conclude, in the character of Osalez the financier ; and I 
will therefore hasten to Bernard street.” 

Having mounted his hack, he proceeded thither in haste ; but at 
the door received, from the now obsequious butler, who delighted 
to honor all whom his master delighted to receive at his dinner-table, 
the information that might have been anticipated — 44 Mr. Oialcz had 
been off to the city these two hours.” 

44 And where am I to find him in the city V * demanded young 
Annesley ; a query that appeared to excite as much amazement in 
the rotund pantler, as though he had demanded in what quarter of 
the town he was to look for Westminster Abbey ! 

“ You will find Mr. Osalez, sir, on the Stock Exchange,” said he, 
conceiving that the handsome young gentleman, differing so widely 
from the usual visitants of that house, must be infirm of intellect- — 
44 If off’ ’Change, you will find him at his house of business.” 

44 And where is that ?” — incautiously inquired Basil. 

The man seemed to draw largely upon the decorum of his calling, 
in order to refrain from a laugh. 

44 In the Old Jewry, sir. But you need only mention the name of 
Mr. Osalez in the city, sir, for any one to show you the way. The 
first cabman or orange-boy you meet will inform you.” 

To the city Basil now hurried ; and his park hack was probably as 
much amazed as his master, to find himself wedged between wa- 
gons full of puncheons of sugar or bales of dry goods, the gigantic 
size of which accounted equally for the power of the splendid draught 
horses and extent of the team in use, which appeared to belong to a 
world of more colossal dimensions. The stunning rumble of Cheap- 
side, the perpetual motion involving so much of the utile and so 
little of the dulce of life, served to excite his wonder how the less 
practical-part of the business, the portion requiring the aid of figures 
and calculations, could ever be carried on in the midst of such a 
hubbub ! 

On turning, however, into the narrow lane suggested to him, at 
his first inquiry, as containing the house of business of Osalez & 
Co., he perceived that even the city has its 44 quiet situations,” its 44 no 
thoroughfares,” — like the aristocratic Park Place, and St. James’s 
Places, adjoining the parks of the West End. The narrow, dirty, 
dingy lane was apparently occupied by the warehouses of wholesale 
trade ; — for just as every house of mark in St. James’s had formerly 
its iron extinguisher before the door, to put out the flambeaux of 
the footmen, every doorway had, in token of distinction, its ponder- 
ous iron crane, and the lower windows of the houses were closely 
boarded. On every door-post was inscribed one or more names, as 
unaristocratic as 44 Jacob Grimms & nephew,” 44 Fiskin, brothers,” 
• 4 Danda & Company,” without further indication of their calling, 
names constituting the unostentatious thews and sinews of commer- 
cial life ; and though little or no traffic was going on, at that hour, 
in the street, it is probable that a larger amount of ^apital passed 
through every one of those shabby doorways in the course of a week, 
than into any mansion in St. James’s Square in the period of a year! 

Half-way down the lane, however, was an opening into a small 
court, which, by calculation, a[ peared to contain the number indi- 
cated to Basil ; and having accordingly dismounted and given his 
horse in charge to a steady-looking old man, who put himself for- 
ward for the charge, Basil proceeded through the gorge of a narrow 
court into a larger one, surrounded by high buildings ; one side of 
which seemed occupied by a handsome old fashioned dwelling-house, 
and the other by a range of buildings, the basement story of which 
was appropriated to counting-houses. Of this portion of the man. 
Sion, the huge swing-doors seemed in continual vibration to admit 
or emit a perpetual string of human beings; — the sort of careworn, 
swallow-cheeked people, who walk with their coats closely buttoned 
over their pockets, and their blank visages indicating a mind wan- 
dering at many miles distance ; — v^hom one recognises at first sight 
as tfye children of the tribe of Mammon. 

Unnoticed, — for such people proceed straight to their place of ren- 
dezvous, without a vacant thought to bestow on auguries of the 
flight of crows or sight of strange faces,— Basil pushed his way 
through the swing-doors among the rest ; and, after passing a se- 
cond swing-door, found himself in a vast, sky-lighted chamber, con- 
taining, by way of furniture, a large time-piece against the wall, 
three long ranges of wooden counters, forty wooden stools, and forty 


wooden clerks sitting calculating thereupon ; each with his parch- 
ment-bound ledger before him, — each with the multiplication-table 
engraved on his soul in characters effacing even those of the tables 
of the law ! 

In the centre of the hall, was a single mahogany desk and stool, 
somewhat loftier than the rest, apparently destined to the use 
of the high-priest of the temple of Mammon. But it was va- 
vant. Clerks were bustling backwards and forwards, with cheque- 
books, or pocket-books, or printed papers in their hands ; apparently 
as mechanical in operations involving the disposal of millious, as the 
time-piece against the wall in admeasurement of the still more val- 
uable currency assigned to it3 computation. A buzz of whispers, 
never rising into unbusiness. like tumult,' seemed to form a portion 
of the heated and unsavory atmosphere of the place ; — tire money 
shovelled backwards and forwards across the grated pay- counter be- 
ing of no more account in the eyes of the individuals occupied in 
promoting its circulation, than barley-sugar in those of the confec- 
tioner’s boy to whom prohibition has ceased to be irksome. 

As usual, when in chase of his extraordinary friend, Basil Annes- 
ley found himself among a race of persons with whom he had neither 
; an emotion nor an impulse in common ; and after being pushed 
against, and shuffled aside fora minute or two, by individuals having 
business to transact, and as careless in their outward man as is usu- 
ally the case with those who have anything to do in the world, he 
inquired for Mr. Osalez. The clerk to whom he applied, pointed to 
the vacant chair, as much as to say, 44 Can’t you use your eyes and 
perceive that he is absent ?” — when Basil, perceiving that his inform- 
ant was young and beardless, a stripling like himself, moved a few 
steps towards the swing-doors, and again addressed the inquiry to a 
grave- looking, middle-aged man, with a bald head, seedy coat, and 
mourning ring on his little finger ; — who was wasting his time in 
mending his pen, and had the appearance, among his brother clerks, 
of a heavy coach running against the mails. 

On finding himself civilly accosted by a well-dressed stranger, the 
elderly clerk slipped from beneath the counter, and desiring Basil to 
follow him, led the way to the extremity of the hall, towards a room 
divided from it only by a glazed compartment, shaded with green 
curtains ; but containing only another desk with an old silver stand- 
ish and writing implements, and half a dozen horse-hair chairs. 

44 I beg your pardon, sir,” apologized the dull old clerk, — 44 1 fan- 
cied Mr. Osalez must be here ! He must have just stepped out. He 
will be back at two. He is always here as the clock strikes two. — 
Perhaps you will return ? — or at least favor me by writing your name 
for him ?” 

Basil declined doing either. He felt that he had committed a 
blunder in following Osalez. He found himself as little at home in 
that vast establishment, as at the bottom of a gold mine. The place 
was as little adapted to the confidences he was expecting as the lit- 
tle noisy chamber containing the clockworks of St. Paul’s! Angry 
with himself and the clerk for the time he had wasted, he muttered 
something about calling again ; and bustled his way back again 
through the hall, when his transit was as little noted as that of one 
of the motes dancing in the slanting sunbeams straggling through 
the skylight, — as if in search of some living being on which to con- 
fer enjoyment, from the paved open space adjoining the old mansion 
house, and ruralized by the name of garden, because containing a 
pump, and an old sycamore, with about as much sap in the trunk as 
there exists in the copper- tree forming part of the Chatsworthyete 
d ’ eau. 

Having reached once more the narrow opening of the court into 
the street, Basil was about to remount his horse, the rein of which 
was offered him with one hand by the old man, while holding out the 
other for the expected remuneration ; when, as he -was groping in 
his pocket for a sixpence, instead of the shilling he would probably 
have given had his visit been less infructuous, the man whispered in 
a tone of mysterious confidence, 44 Vy for you sheek him here, ma 
tear ?” — and lo, after a start of surprise, young Annesley recognized 
in the decent-looking individual by whom he was addressed, the fel- 
low who, both in Delahaye Street and at Rochester House, had al- 
ready marked his respectful recognition of the protege of A, O. 

| 44 And where should 1 seek Mr. Osalez, unless at his house of bu- 

| siness ?” — demanded Basil, angrily. 

44 He hash more houshesof businesh than van, two, or dree,” — re- 
plied the familiar of Abednego’s inquisition. 

44 Take me to the one where I am most likely to find him, then, — ■ 
and it shall be worth your while,” observed Basil Annesley. 

The old man who had been stooping in scornful examination of the 
minute coin bestowed on him by Annesley, now peered up into his 
face with a cunning glance, that not even the disappearance of his 
rusty beard could disguise from being that of the old Jew ; and with 
only a familiar nod of the head by way of signal of acquiescence 
and intelligence, he now took the head of Basil’s horse and preceded 
him through a tortuous complexity of dirty lanes, in which the stag- 
nant atmosphere seemed imprisoned as in the cell of a felon ! 

At the close of a ten minutes walk, he paused in a small shabby- 
street, which, from the unequal form of the buildings, seemed lo con- 
stitute the rear or outlet of one of greater magnitude, and taking a 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA. — ABEDNEGO. 


36 


key from his pocket, opened a mean looking green door, to which j 
neither knocker nor bell-handle was attached; then, stepping back 
stealthily to Basil, resumed the rein of his horse. 

“ Do you suppose that I am going to run my head into an earth so 
uninviting as that ?” — cried young Annesley, warmly. “ How do I 
know into what sort of a den of thieves you may be decoying me ?” 

“Tieveshif ye shoose !” said the Jew, no whit offended. “ But 
the pashage before you, ma tear, leadsh shtraigh where you would 
find A. O. Thatsh all!” 

Reassured by his previous knowledge of the old fellow’s connex- 
ion with Abednego, Basil determined to dare the adventure ! Single- 
handed, he knew himself to be a match for most men ; and his 
strange conductor would scarcely venture to allure into any danger- 
ous resort an officer of the guards, for whom active search would be 
made in case of disappearance, and who would easily be traced, 
through the house of business of Osalez, to the suspicious spot. Ne- 
vertheless, the entrance to the narrow passage was grim and repelling 
enough to daunt a bolder adventurer. 

Once crossed the threshold, he was rather excited than otherwise, 
by the mysterious aspect of the spot. But scarcely had he groped a 
few steps along the dark stone corridor, when the door was clapped too 
behind him ; and he found himself alone in the stone passage, which 
received light only through small gratings inserted in the doors at ei- 
ther end, as if for the purpose of ventilation. Since it was as easy to 
attempt further progress, as to return, Basil pushed his way forwards ; 
and on approaching the door at the end, he perceived that near it, 
the passage widened, so as to form a recess containing a wooden 
bench ; while through the grating, whicl* was on an exact level with 
his face, voices in eager disputation reached him from within. One 
of them, at least, was familiar to him — one of them was that of A. 
O.! The other was a woman’s ! 

-On applying his hand to find a latch or opening, he found to his 
surprise that what he had conceived to be a door, was simply a por- 
tion of the passage, — the wooden bench being continued across; and 
after a moment’s reflection, the nature of the apartment -within, and 
of the conversation which he could not forbear overhearing, convin- 
ced him that he was simply installed in some hiding-place or observa- 
tory, — some Dionysius’s ear, — from which the Money lender was in 
the habit of exercising hi3 unholy inquisition over his victims previ- 
ous to a closer encounter ! To interrupt such a conversation as was 
passing mthe chamber beyond, with the admission of having been an 
eavesdropper, would convey mortification to one party, vexation to 
the other ; and Basil felt consequently privileged to abide the result 
of the interview. 

The fragment of discourse that now reached his ears, however it 
might disgust, afforded him no new insight into the character or con- 
duct of the lady upon whom he was thus forced to play the spy, — 

• — being no other than the young Countess of Winterfield. All he 
had formerly heard to her disadvantage from Abednego, naturally re- 
curred to his mind ; and he was consequently less surprised at the 
tone of harshness and air of contempt openly assumed towards her 
by the Money-lender. 

Foy it was no longer the well-dressed, well-mannered Osalez who 
stood before him. There was nothing to recall the distinguished finan- 
cier, — the enlightened patron of the arts ! • It was the hard, cautious, 
calculating old usurer of Soho who occupied a plain arm-chair ; op. 
posite to the sofa, whereon, arrayed in all the elegance of fashion, 
alternately smiling and weeping, — exercising her coquetry as a beau- 
ty, and her pathos as a petitioner — sat the unhappy woman, who evi- 
dently trusted to the effect of her mingled charms and eloquence, to 
soften the obdurate heart of — A. O.! 

CHAPTER XV. 

“ But when I tell you,” cried the inconsiderate Lady Winterfield, 
as Basil drew near, — (little suspecting that a third person was 
within reach, to note the artifices by which she was attempting to 
recommend herself to the hard heart of the Money-lender,) — “ when 
I tell you that this is the last time I will ever trouble you with an 
application ?” 

“ You have told me the same thing, Madam, tjiese half a dozen 
times!” replied, in his coldest and most deliberate voice, the imper- 
turbable Abednego. “I had the honor of assuring you, during the 
hurried visit you made to town from Brighton, before Christmas, that 
it would be totally out of my power to accommodate you further. 
My advances already exceed the value of the jewels deposited.” 

Nonsense ! — Don’t I know the turn of money they cost Lord 
Winterfield, on our marriage, only five years ago ? I have still by 
me the jeweller’s bills, which I can show you !” 

“ Can you also show me the jeweller’s conscience V 9 retorted 
Abednego. “ Such articles are in variably sold at two- thirds beyond 
their intrinsic value. To convince^you, Madam, of this, so far from 
making you a further 'oan, I am most anxious to replace the dia- 
monds in your keeping, on receiving back, with interest, the amount 
advanced on such security.” 

“ You say this,” cried Lady Winterfield, pettishly, “ only because 
you know that it is utterly out of my power to return it. You are 
aware that nothing but extreme neoessity ever compelled me to place 


the jewels in your hands ; and now, you insult me by wishing to recall 
a loan you are aware that I cannot repay ! — How do you suppose, 
pray, that I am to obtain such a sum of money ?” 

“ That is your ladyship’s afiair. When, by your tears and entrea- 
ties, you extorted it from me, you assured me that your embarrass- 
ments were temporary, and that you would very shortly be able to 
clear yourself.” 

“ Yes ! — of course ! — I said all that is usually said to Money- 
lenders — ” 

“All that may be usually said to Money-lenders by fashionable 
Countesses in distress. But I can assure your ladyship, strange as 
you may think it, that there are persons in the world who hold sacred 
the redemption, of their honest word, even when pledged to a Money- 
lender ! — Witn respect to the extreme necessity you urge as a plea 
for placing in my hands your family jewels, I must be permitted to 
say that I have seen your ladyship’s establishment, that I have been 
allowed the honor of entering your ladyship’s drawing-room — very 
different, I admit, from my own,” continued A. O , glancing round 
the cold, wainscoted, unfurnished room, the boards of which were 
covered with a square of discolored Scotch carpet, — “ but equally 
far from inspiring me with compassion for the destitution of the 
owner !” 

“ We are bound, in this w T orld, to keep up the decencies of life due 
to our position in society 1 ” interrupted the Countess, in a haughty 
tone. 

“ I thoroughly agree with your ladyship,” was the fearless reply of 
Abednego, — “ and it is precisely tor that reason I have it at heart to 
see the valuables of the Countess of Winterfield removed from the 
custody of a money-lending Jew.” 

His lovely visiter blushed to the temples at this nnexpeetad retort, 
but more in anger than in sorrow. 

“ A step lower in the scale of degradation,” calmly resumed 
Abednego, “ and they would appear among the unredeemed pledges 
in a pawn-broker’s window. Think of the brilliant Countess of 
Winterfield presenting herself at Court with duplicates in her 
pocket !” 

“You presume upon my necessities to insult me thus !” — cried th^ 
indignant woman, roused by this terrible sentence. 

“ Necessities, Madam, permit me to observe, wholly of your own 
creation ! I am not unfrequently compelled to witness the woes of 
my fellow-creatures, — ay, even those of your own sex. But how dif- 
ferent i 3 their nature from those of which you complain ! Trust me, 
there are severer pangs in the world than arise from the rumpling of 
the rose-leaf! — I have seen mothers of families struggling for their 
children’s bread ; — I have seen devoted wives beggared by the impro- 
vidence of their husbands, yet exerting themselves diligently, humbly, 
and silently, to extricate themselves from ruin. Such misfortunes, 
Madam, and such penury, I respect. Nay, I have known well-born 
women subject themselves to wretchedness and privation, for the 
sake of their lovers, — and even those I have respected ! — But I have 
neither respect nor pity for the wantonness of waste that purports 
only the entanglement of frivilous admirers. The display intended 
to deceive some unhappy dupe into offering you his hand, moves only 
my contempt. If you must needs have an opera-box, for the young 
Marquis to sit beside you throughout the evening as throughout the 
morning, — if you must needs have a succession of showy dresses, to 
enhance your beauty to secure these danglers, — if you must needs 
have brilliant equippages to ffy about town, — to wander from races to 
breakfasts, — from Greenwich parties to pic-nics-at Ken Wood, (your 
ladyship perceives that I am tolerably well-versed in your movements !) 
— have them at other cost than mine ! — I have no money to throw 
away on the maintenance of your follies.” 

Lady Winterfield started up. Galled beyond endurance by the 
humiliations fhus inflicted upon her, she resolved to obey the harsh 
injunction of Abednego, and seek assistance elsewhere. But alas! 
a moments reflection served to remind her that she had already sought 
it, and in vain ; — that she had no resource — no hope — save in the in- 
solent rebuker of her faults. She submitted, therefore, — rendered 
docile by the iron pressure of necessity. In a moment she subdued 
her temper, and humbled her pride, — reduced to tameness like the 
beasts of the field, by the pangs of privation ! 

“ You are most severe upon me,” said she, in the pretty coaxing 
voice that none knew better how to assume when her purpose need- 
ed, — “ though perhaps not more so than I deserve. But when I as- 
sure you, that if you persist in refusing me this five hundred pounds 
I am utterly ruined — ruined both in fortune and reputation — ” 

“ My refusal will not render your ladyship a shilling poorer than 
you are now. In what way, therefore, can you charge me with your 
ruin 

“ You will have, at least, exposed it to the world.” 

Abednego shrugged his shoulders. “You expose yourself, Ma- 
dam,” said he, by using such arguments. — Once for all, I repeat that 
you are wasting the substance of others, and of your children, merely 
to keep up false appearances in the world. So long as you enjoy 
luxuries which you do not and cannot pay for, 3 ou are shining at the 
cost of your coachmakers, jewellers, milliners, money-lenders, — the 
abject obligee of humble tradesmen. At this moment — woman and 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA. — ABEDNEGO. 


37 


Countess as you are — you stand before me as an inferior. Though 
you may be a countess of the realm, and I the vilified A. O., — I rise 
above you as a capitalist, — I rise above you as a moralist, in whose 
hands you have placed weapons of ofFence.” 

It was now the turn of Lady Winterfield to shrug her shoulders ; 
but with impatience rather than contempt. 

“ Last week,” resumed Abednego, careless of the variations of her 
countenance, — “ there came hither to me a woman young and lovely 
as yourself, who, like yourself, had exceeded her means, and broken 
her engagements. She came hither to me, not like your ladyship, — 
hoping to move me to pity by the sight of her loveliness and her 
affected despair, — she had other arms for the combat : and those arms, 
Madam, prevailed ! — To her I assigned thrice the sum of her original 
debt, and at my own instigation.” 

44 And of what nature were those arms ?” — demanded Lady Win. 
terfield, coloring deeply, and by casting down her eyes, showing that 
she was prepared for expressions of gallantry and admiration on the 
part of one whom she loathed like a harpy. 

44 It avails little to explain,” replied Abednego, with an ill-repressed 
smile of exultation, as he rose from his chair and approached her ; 
and the blood of Basil Annesley boiled in his veins, and he pressed 
his knee closer upon the wooden bench, while inclining his eyes to- 
wards the grated aperture, “ for they are such as it were, perhaps, un- 
becoming so great a lady as the Countess of Winterfield to put to 
profit/'’ 

44 1 am willing to use any arms, — make any concession,” faltered 
the fair bankrupt, — a deadly paleness succeeding to her previous 
flush, as she contemplated the growing audacity of the Money-lender. 

Abednego folded his meagre hands carelessly before him, and 
throwing back his head stood contemplating her from head to foot, 
with a smile of indescribable expression. It was impossible to behold 
a more lovely woman; and the Money-lender gazed upon her as if 
taking an appraisement of her charms. 

“ The arm? to which I alluded, are not at your ladyship’s dis- 
posal i” was at length his sarcastic reply. 44 For they were tears of 
genuine remorse for an involuntary breach of faith ; — they were the 
worn and haggard looks which labor and want impose upon the fair- 
est face. — She was a woman of the people, Madam ; — like you, left 
young, a widow, — like you, with helpless children dependent upon her 
prudence. She told me — and her mein attested her veracity — that 
for them she had toiled day and night, — for them abstained from food 
and rest. But the outlay that was to set her up in business (borrowed 
of one of the agents of A. O., and at usurious interest,) was still un- 
repaid. She was still poor, still insolvent, still needing indulgence ; 
and came hither, like the fashionable Countess of Winterfield, to beg 
for mercy !” 

Greatly relieved, even while writhing under the severe lesson 
imparted by Abednego, the fashionable spendthrift gasped for breath. 

“ I granted it!” — resumed the harsh admonitor. “ And I granted 
her also my respect, — almost my affection. The old Money-lender 
soothed her as a father might have done, and sent her home in peace 
and comfort to her children. — Yours, Madam, w v illhave less to thank 
you for ! — I will not expose you, — I— will not pursue you with the 
rigor of the law. But I choose to retain in security for the property 
of mine which you have squandered, the diamonds pledged to me, to 
that effect ; and without affording you another guinea in extension of 
the loan, — aware that neither that, nor millions, would impede your 
luin and disgrace.” 

“ Then I am lost !” cried Lady Winterfield, losing all her self- 
possession and unable to restrain her tears, — 11 Tnose precious 
diamonds — ” 

44 Those diamonds, madam, you do well to prize,” resumed Abednego. 
44 They were the bridal gift of one who bestowed his heart upon you, 
confiding in the promise of a fair exterior ; who entrusted his honor 
to you, believing in the truth of your affections; who, on his dying 
bed, bequeathed his children to your care, believing that all his love 
and confidence could not have been bestowed in vain ! You do well, 
therefore to prize the tokens of his love I — But, trust me, they are 
sjafer in my keeping than in your own !” 

44 But if I can obtain from some other person upon them,” per- 
sisted the humbled woman, clasping her hands in intercession, while 
tears streamed wildly dewn her cheeks, — 44 a sufficient amount to 
repay you what I have borrowed, with the addtional sum needful to 
repair my shattered affairs ?” 

44 You cannot /” interrupted Abednego, 44 1 have weighed them to 
the uttermost carat ; and the most liberal diamond-merchant could 
not afford you in purchase within fifty pounds of the sum you have 
received from myielf as a loan. Few better lapidaries in this town 
than myself !” 

44 But if you would permit me to try /” persisted the lady, half re- 
monstrating, half wheedling. 

“No, madam!” replied the Money-lender, with a significant 
smile. 41 You are not to be trusted with such valuable property. I 
could place those diamonds in the hands of the poor workwoman of 
whom I spake, with a far more sanguine hope of their safe return, 
than in those of the Right Honorable Countess of Winterfield 1” t 

44 Then nothing remains to me but death cried the distracted 


lady, throwing back from her face her silken ringlets, intermingled 
with the filmy drapery of Brussels lace attached to her tiny French 
bonnet. 44 May you never live to repent, sir, the injury you have 
this day inflicted upon me and mine !” 

“ People rarely give up the ghost a day the sooner for threats of 
self-destruction,” replied the unimpressionable Abednego. “Your 

ladyship will, I trust, live long, — long enough for retrenchment, 

long enough for repentance !” 

“ Remorseless man J 5 ’ cried Lady Winterfield, even in the midst 
of her genuine tears, unable to renounce her habitual affectation. — 
44 Will nothing move your obdurate heart ? — Must I implore you on 
my bended knees? — Must I — ” 

44 Spare yourself these exaggerations, madam,” coolly interposed 
Abednego, “ I am too much used to listen to the pourings forth of 

human passion, not to decide in a moment what feelings are genuine, 

what assumed to induce my compassion. Want, madam, possesses an 
iron key to the innermost recesses of the human heart, — the recesses 
where eloquence lies glowing, like the lava within the volcano ; — 
and that key is often turned in my presence. The merchant trem- 
bling for his credit, — the soldier for his honor, — the husband for the 
peace of his fireside, — mothers who would screen the faults of their 

children, — children tortured by the necessities of their parents, all 

these, madam, plead to me in turns, and often plead in vain. Judge, 
therefore, — since I can resist the manly struggles of an upright man 
on the verge of bankruptcy, — of a wife agonized by the prospects of 
an honourable husband’s imprisonment and shame, — whether I am 
likely to be touched by a few graceful attitudes arising from the ex- 
tortions of a milliner’s bill, or the claims of a compounder of fashion- 
able cosmetics ?” 

Lady Winterfield now started up with an indignation of wounded 
pride, far more genuine than her attempts at pathos. 

44 1 was a fool,” cried she, 44 io expect from a Money-lender the 
sentiments of a man ! D j not, however, fancy that you will trample 
upon me with impunity. You may be compelled to restore those 
jewels by higher authority than mine. My lawyer assures me you 
are liable to prosecution for usurious practices against me ; — my law- 
yer assures me you are far more in my power than I in yours. 
Since you choose to declare war against me, take the consequences.. 
I promise you that with all your vulgar effronter} T , you shall have 
the worst of it.” 

Abednego smiled sarcastically at this sudden transition from the 
fine lady to the virago. 

44 1 am almost beginning to feel alarmed, madam,” said he. 44 Suf- 
fer me to ring for your carriage. It will be a relief to my terrors, as 
well as to your emotions.” 

He rose from his seat as he spoke ; and for a moment, Basil An- 
nesley apprehended that, by one of those effects of legerdemain, (of 
which he was now beginning to be ever in expectation when dealing 
with A. O.,) the host and his visiter might find it necessary to invade 
his retreat to secure egress from the house. But it was not so. — 
Scarcely had Abednego touched the bell lying on his bureau, when 
an opposite door was partially thrown open, by a brazen-fronted 
clerk, (having a pen behind his ear, so admirably fitted to the locali- 
ty that it seemed to have come with him into the world,) who in- 
stantly fixed his hard, light- colored, predial eye scrutinizingly on 
the lady, as though the habit of officiating for the Money-lender" had 
endowed him with the power of reading in the faces of. his clients 
the success or failure of their mission. 

44 See this lady to her carriage, Raffles,” said Abednego, resuming 
his usual place at his bureau, with so determined an air of attention 
to business, as conveyed a sentence of dismissal. 44 Her ladyship ist 
in haste.” 

Too proud to exhibit to a low subordinate, probably as impractica- 
ble as his employer, the misery gnawing at her heart, Lady Winter, 
field drew the Brussels lace closer round her face ; and, by an habi- 
tual impulse of affectation, lifting her silken pelisse from the ground, 
as if afraid of contact with the vulgar earth, quitted the room, es- 
corted by her singular esquire ; who, throwing open wide the fold- 
ing doors, probably in derision, as if to give passage to some august 
personage, revealed to view beyond, a handsome apartment richly 
hung with pictures. It was evident, therefore, to Basil that he was 
ensconced in the unsuspected issue of some substantial residence. 
Remembering well the sudden apparition of the Money-lender as if 
emerging from a panel in the wall, when he himself first sought him 
as a client, he doubted not that some similar den had enabled Abed- 
nego to watch and surprise his actions. Indignant at the idea of 
this treachery, he was not sorry to have retaliated on Osalez, by be- 
coming an unsuspected witness of his privacy, before he gave him 
warning of his involuntary presence in the trap. 

Scarcely had the door closed upon the Countess, when, flinging 
down the pen by which he had signified his decree of dismissal, he 
resumed his place in his arm-chair, throwing himself back into it 
with an expansion of self-indulgence, as if luxuriating in the idea of 
the torture he had been inflicting. Rubbing his withered hands with 
an air of exultation, a hearty laugh burst from his leathern cheeks, 
the hollowness of which thrilled to the marrow the frame of the 
warm-hearted young auditor. 


38 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA. — ABEDNEGO. 


“ Dreadful !’ 5 was the shuddering response of Basil to the trium- 
phant laugh of Abednego. But before he had time to pronounce 
his purposed warning of the presence of an intruder, the opposite 
door was again thrown open ; and Annesley felt instantly revolted 
by the apprehension that the unfortunate victim of folly and frivolity 
might be returning for the fruitless renewal of her supplications, it 
was a relief to him when the bold faced clerk entered alone. 

“And what amount of bribe did the pretty fool offer you by the 
way, eh ! Raffles, to induce you to influence me favorably in her be- 
half?’ 5 demanded Abednego, still chuckling. 

“You seem to have an instinctive insight into these matters, sir,” 
said the clerk, with a facetious grin. “ Her ladyship offered me ten per 
cent., if, through you or any other Money-lender, I could effect a 
levy for her. It was unnecessary to apprize so fine a lady that it is 
worth your while to pay me so liberal a salary to be honest* that 
honesty is every way my best policy. Poor soul ! I was almost sor- 
ry for her on handing her into the spiry-looking turn-out waiting for 
her opposite to the counting-house door.” 

“ Keep your pity, my good friend, for worthier objects,” cried the 
Money-lender, proceeding to sort some papers on the table beside 
him. “ I have been giving the foolish woman a lesson she will not 
easily forget. To no purpose, however — a mere waste of eloquence! 
The moth will singe her silly wings again — nay, probably perish in 
the flame, the first opportunity.” 

“ Scarce five-and-twenty, to judge by her appearance,” cried the 
confidential clerk, yet already debased by transactions with the 
Jews. “ It is affleting ! It is positively afflicting.” 

“ Her ladyship’s bright eyes seem to have wrought the charm upon 
the man, which they had attempted in vain to work upon the master !" 
cried Abednego, with a sneer. “ You are growing as soft as a bale of 
cotton, Raffles! Take heed, my man, or you will become unfit for 
your employment. However, since this cunning hussy seems to 
have touched your compassion, you shall even carry her the cheque, 
by means of which I intend to prevent her, not from flinging 
herself into the Serpentine, or buying two-penny worth of ratsbane, 
— of either of which feats she has further purpose than you or I, — 
but to preserve her already tarnished name from becoming as black 
as such excess of levity on the part of the mother of a family might 
well render it. I have intimated to one of her brothers, — a gallant 
man, to whom her honor is dear — the mad course she is pursuing ; 
and till he arrives in town, am bound to exercise some providence 
over her destinies.” 

“ You intend, then, sir, to accede to her request for this further 
loan?” said the clerk, evidently astonished. “You will please to 
remember, however, that I have duly apprized you that the security 
is already exceeded-” 

“ I know it ! — I know it ! Curse the security ! Have I not secu- 
rity twice as sterling in her dread of exposure ?” 

“ But if she have not the means of paying, however much exposed ?” 

“ Her family have. The pledge of a name such as hers is as 
wood as diamonds or gold-dust. But what are you grinning at, sir ?” 

“ At all the invectives so uselessly wasted by the Countess, be- 
tween this chamber and her carriage.” 

o \ — i can imagine the torrent of abuse she let forth against 
poor A. O. The way with them ail! Unless one consent to be 
fleeced like the rest of their creditors, one becomes dog, curmudgeon, 
robber, Jew ! The poor initials of A. O. have been made the object 
of more execrations, I suspect, than any other combination of the 
letters of the alphabet.’ 5 

“ But surely, sir, since you intended to oblige her, you might have 
spared her the terrible moments of suspense she has had to undergo.’ 5 

“ And the sermon that preceded it, eh ! No, no, Raffles ! It is be- 
cause I intended to rescue her out of the jaws of perdition, that I had the 
courage to reprove. I am too cruel, eh, to these young and tender 
sinners ? I tell you, it were as reasonable to tax the surgeon with 
cruelty who amputates some gangrened limb to save the life of a pa- 
tient- But enough of this. Let her have her money by five o’clock. 
By the way, cash the cheque I have written, as you go along the 
Strand — which will secure her from the humiliation of presenting 
the draught of a Money-lender. She will attribute my relenting, of 
course, to the eloquence wrung out of you by the influence of her 
ten per cent. Ha ! ha ! ha ! Better so ! It would be the ruin of 
me if I got the reputation of being chicken-hearted. By the way, 
you have given instructions, I hope, to Cognovit, to proceed against 
the old Viscount ?” 

“ I have, sir.” 

“ And to make cut a writ against — 5 ’ 

Basil Annesley now shouted so loudly as to disturb the equanimi- 
ty of both the Money-lender and his clerk, for he had no wish to pry 
more extensively into such transactions as he foresaw were about to 
be disclosed. m 

“ Who the deuce is in the pigeon-hole ?’ 5 demanded Abednego. 

“ It is certainly not the voice of Zebedee ! 55 replied Raffles; and 
before Basil could reiterate his signal, part of the wall seemed to re- 
cede beside him; the moveable panel, dividing the trap from the 
council-chamber of the Money-lender, being withdrawn. 

The confidential clerk instantly collared the skulking stranger. 


“ Your pistols, sir, your pistols! 5 ’ shouted Raffles to bis superior, 
“ 5 tis some housebreaker — some burglar. I have him fast !” 

“ Loose him again then, and thank your stars that your noisy zeal 
has not tempted me into shooting through the head one but for 
whose aid you would have been now thrown masterless on the 
world !” cried Abednego, who, having snatched a pistol from his bu- 
reau and confronted the open panel, Instantly descried through the 
doubtful light, that it was no other than the young guardsman, who 
was struggling in the grasp of his deputy. 

“ I have sought you in many strange places, Mr. Osalez, 5 ’ observ- 
ed Basil, calmly stepping into the room, on finding himself released, 
“ and found you sometimes in others equally strange, where your 
presence was wholly unlooked-for. On the present occasion, I had 
no intention of becoming a spy upon your actions. Though in search 
of you and at your own desire — I swear to you that I knew not, 
when I was thrust into yonder disgraceful cell, to what sort of re- 
treat I was proceeding. 55 

“No need of an oath to confirm your statement ! 55 replied A. 0., 
notin the slightest degree embarrassed; “since, unless favored by 
the pass-key of one of my agents, it had been impossible for you to 
wind your way into one of the most secret of my places of resort- 
Nevertheless, since you are beginning to affect compunctions of con- 
science about visiting the den of a Money-lender, it may not be amiss 
to remind you that, once upon a lime, a certain Mr. Basil Annes- 
ley — 55 

“Visited, on a similar errand, a certain A. O. !” replied the in- 
voluntary spy. “ But I came not then as a friend — I came not, as 
now, to — ’ 5 

“You came then, precisely upon the same errand as now .'” re- 
torted Abednego, firmly. “ You came, and come, in the hopes of 
benefiting Verelst. Nay, wherefore deny it ? Can you exhibit a bet- 
ter passport to ray regard than solicitude for the welfare of my sis- 
ter’s family ?” 

The astonished clerk lost for a moment his professional air of cal- 
lous effrontery, in utter arnaz ment — first, at hearing the old Money- 
lender address, in a tone of affectionate interest, a well-dressed young 
man of Basil’s manners and appearance ; and secondly, at an avowal 
of kinsmanship with any mortal living on the part of A. O., whom 
he had hitheito regarded as an insulated being — a sort of mysterious 
automaton composed of gold and arithmetic, who was equally likely 
to have emerged from the Great Pyramid or from St. Giles’s Charity 
School, so utterly disconnected did he appear from the ordinary as- 
sociations of life. It was highly mortifying to the astonished and in- 
quisitive Raffles, when, a moment afterwards, Abednego signified his 
desire to be alone with his handsome young visiter ; and, apparently 
on his guard against the habits of duplicity he had inculcated into 
his subordinates, followed him gravely across the dining-room as he 
retreated, and carefully locked the door upon him after tiis departure ; 
an unmistakeable signal, in that mysterious establishment, that no 
possible emergency, short of the house being on fire, was to entitle 
j the people of the Money-lender to intrude upon his privacy. 

“And now,’ 5 said Abednego, after returning to the room, and re- 
| installing himself in his sanctum, “seat yourself, I entreat, and let 
us have a few minutes’ unmolested conversation. 5 ’ 

“ Excuse me,” replied Basil, glancing through the still open panel 
along the dark corridor — “ I have left my horse yonder in the street, 
under the care of an utter stranger — ’ 5 

“Under the care of one of my confidential agents, or you would 
not be here I 5 ’ retorted Abednego. “ Fear nothing ! Zebedee has 
something of a taste for horse-flesh. It was him I employed to seize 
the Duke of Rochester’s stud at Newmarket. The fellow will take 
good care of your hack.” 

So saying, he closed the panel, by a spring, and came and sat him- 
self down over against Basil, in the arm-chair in which he had mused 
so exultingly after the departure of the Countess of Winterfield. But 
with his usual tact of discrimination, he instantaneously discerned 
the unfavorable impression made on the young man by the scene he 
had recently witnessed. Young Annesley was cold, unexpansive, 
uncordial — neither disposed to receive with applause the biting jests 
of his companion, nor to listen with respect to his homilies. The 
open-hearted soldier seemed resolved to demonstrate his conscious- 
ness of being in the company of a professional Money-lender. 

For some minutes, Abednego attempted to wrestle with this sud- 
den mistrust ; but finding all. his efforts to raise a smile or command 
attention abortive, he suddenly burst forth into a more genuine strain. 

“ I see how it is !” cried he. “ I have lost your regard — I have 
lost your friendship. The warm interest of a young heart like yours 
fell like dew upon my old age, reviving feelings I had never expect 
ed to find re-cxistent in my withered heart ; and already the fountain 
is dried up — the desert again parched. Master as I am of millions 
that first spontaneous impulse of human sympathy towards me, I 
prized above them all ! And now, you hate me ! I see it in your face 
— I hear it in your voice, or rather in your silence ! Do not deny it, 
Basil Annesley, you are on the verge of loathing and despising the 
unfortunate A. O. ! 5 ’ 

* “ Unfortunate /” reiterated Basil, with a smile. 

“ Ay ! most unfortunate ! 5 ’ reiterated Abednego. “ A victim from 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA. — ABEDNEGO. 


39 


his birth — before his birth— a foredoomed outcast— a predestined 
paria — a — ” 

“ Pause for a moment Mr. Oialez,” interposed Basil. “Far bo 
it from me to surprise the secrets of your prison-house. Reflect, I en- 
treat, before you enter into rash confidences which you may be here- 
after disposed to repent !” 

“No!” cried the Money-lender, his countenance evincing tokens 
of uncontrollable emotion. “ The time is come ! I feci that I cannot 
support the withering weight of your contempt. I must speak or 
die ! I must vindicate myself. Let there be, at least, one human be- 
ing entitled to examine and dispassionately judge the real position 
and provocations of Abednego Osalez.” 

“ In that name, Basil, consists the secret of my destinies !” resum- 
ed the Money-lender, after a pause — for it is that of— a Jew ! incon- 
testably that of a Jew. Comport myself as I may, in accordance with 
all Christian Canons, though I may fear God and love my neighbor 
as myself ; nay, though, as St. Paul hath it, I give my body to be 
burned, what profiteth it to me ? I bear a Jewish name ! My patro- 
nymic smells of the Synagogue ! I am a Jew— I must be a Jevv—the 
world avoucheth it, and who is to gainsay the world ? Opinion — vul- 
gar opinion ! hath placed me among the children of Israel ! Basii 
Annesley — such is the influence that hath overmasted the impulses 
of nature ; such is the social tyranny that hath made me what I am ! 

“ Listen to my story ! 

“ I was born — as Verelst has probably informed you — the only son 
of a wealthy merchant of Cadiz, trading with the whole commercial 
world, but chiefly with England — my mother, and my father’s mother, 
being alike natives of that country. It was, in fact, on the marriage 
of my grandfather with a young Protestant of honorable extraction, a 
countrywoman of your own, that he renounced the church of his 
forefathers, thereby entitling himself to all the charities and indul- 
gences of the Christian faith. His recantation was an act of pure 
conviction; for my grandfather, rich as a Daria or a Medici, was a 
man of spirit and intelligence; and even the passion he had con- 
ceived for the daughter of an English admiral, would not have be- 
guiled him into a capitulation of conscience. By his conversion, he 
turned, of course, against himself the hands and hearts of his own 
people. He made enemies of kith and kin. All those in whose 
veins his blood was flawing soon proved, to him and to the world, 
those kindred drops were converted to the bitterness of gall. 
Had he not a right, however, to conclude that the church to whose 
bosom he had betaken himself, would strive to heal the wounds in 
flicted by their malice ? Had he not cause to believe, that the newly- 
converted Christian would be, by Christians, Christianly entreated ? 

« It was not so. . In Cadiz, where he abided, the people were at 
that time illiterate* bigots ; and to the end of his days, my grandfa- 
ther’s sumptuous mansion was pointed out by the populace as that of 
* Q*a!ez the Jew.’ Had he embraced the Catholic faith, the case 
might been different. But the burnt-oflerings of his zeal smoked not 
on the altars of their cathedral, and they consequently persisted in 
opprobriating him as ( Osalez the Jew !’ 

« Of that time I remember nothing ! My grandfather died soon 
after I saw the light ; but I remember overhearing legendary whis- 
perings by our fireside, betwixt his venerable widow and my father, 
of the times when, on any occasion of popular tumult, it became es- 
sential to conciliate the populace by prodigal benefactions, lest they 
should attack and spoliate in the harbor or on the quays the vessel or 
merchandise of c the Jew of Cadiz.’ 

« Was this rational ? Has not the God of Christians expressly de- 
clared, that there is more joy in Heaven over the sinner that repent- 
th, than over the ninety and nine just persons who need no repent- 
Jic e ? And which, I pray you, hath done more for the Christian 
church — the man who sacrifices the love of kindred, and the predi- 
lections and belief of his ancestors, to cling to the Cross — or he to 
whom a lukewarm faith is transmitted by his forefathers, who ac- 
cepts it unexamined, yet prospers under the green olive groves of ec- 
clesiastical protection, while the Jewish neophyte is compelled to 
drag, as a burthen in the dust, the galling weight of that Cross, 
which he hath voluntarily and zealously adopted ? 

“ Again I ask, Basil Annesley, is this rational? But when was the 
population of a priest-'ridden country ever rational ? My father, who, 
at his mother’s desire, had been educated in her native country, was 
deeply affected by the mistrust and evil dealing. In England, there- 
fore, did he linger, even after his educaiion was completed. In Eng- 
land, did he love, and wed, and become a father ; nor was it till af- 
ter my birth, that the sudden death of his father compelled him to 
return to Cadiz. Fain would he, from that moment, have extricated 
himself from commercial life-— realized his property, and established 
himself permanently in the land of religious freedom and scientific 
enlightenment. Bat it was impossible ! His capital was so widely 
diffused — his foreign connexions (especially with the English colo- 
nies in the East) were of so widely spreading a nature — that the re- 
mainder of his life was expended in attempting to destroy the root of 
these ramifications, in order to abjure the merchant craft. 

4< Nothing more heart-gnawing than the bitterness engendered by 
consciousness of a defeated purpose. Osalez — f the son of the Jew,* 
—though the wealthiest citizen in Cadiz, while his vessels were 


hailed in every port of Europe, and while his voice decreed the ex- 
istence of plenty or famine for hundreds of thousands — was a miser- 
able man. The corn, wine and oil, in his rich warehouses conveyed 
no food to his soul. In. Spain — in Catholic Spain— he seemed to 
stand aloof from the community, as his father had done before him. 

He became a widower ; and not the poorest of his brother merchants 
would have been content to bestow his daughter in marriage upon 
1 the son of Osalez the Jew !’ 

“ Again I ask you, Basil Annesley, was this rational ? My poor 
father, fancying that in England— liberal England— such prejudices 
were unadmitted, still looked forward. The time would come, he 
fancied, when he should find a successor rich enough to undertake 
his speculations, and invest millions in his vast undertakings ; c and 
then, my boy,’ was ever and ever his cry, ‘ then will I set up my staff 
in the happiest and freest country in the world. England is the land 
of commerce. There the origin of ©ur opulence will be respected, 
and the estates, in the purchase of which I intend to sink the great- 
er portion of my capital, will give you a stake in the country enti- 
tling you to a voice in its legislation. You shall have a seat in Par- 
liament, Abednego ! With your talents, and the education that is to 
perfect them, you may achieve public distinction, and become the 
founder of an honorable family. 1 could almost wish now that I be- 
stowed on you at your baptism a name savoring less of the repellent 
origin of oar ancient house. But when you were christened,theold 
man my father was yet alive ; and I shrunk from inflicting a pang 
upon his warm heart by appearing ashamed of the hame he had in- 
flicted on myself— which was his own, and that of the father of his 
father. To the Unlucky appellative of Abednego I have been my- 
self indebted for half the odium attached in Cadiz to 4 the son of Osa- 
lez the Jew.’ Nevertheless, whenever that title of reprobation meets 
my ear, I think of my father’s grey hairs, and am content ; so may 
it be with yourself ! Should you ever have to smart under its contu- 
melious application, recall to mind the motives of your parents, and 
be patient. 

44 Such, Basil, were the views of this excellent man in affording 
me what is esteemed the first of English educations, — at a public 
school, and the university. He could bear to part with me ; for he 
was again wedded, and the father of a little girl, whom he had 
piously named Rachael, after the custom of his family. 

“ I was a smart and forward boy. From my infancy, I had re- 
ceived in my father’s house that best of schooling, the society of the 
wnse and liberal. The table of the rich Osalez was open to all that 
was enlightened or distinguished in his native city ; — the Grand 
Hidalgoes, whom it was so often in hi3 power to oblige, — the Arch- 
bishop, — the Governor, — the Commandant, — the noblest and best 
in the place. The appointments and entertainments of our house 
were sumptuous as those of the merchant-princcs of Italy ; and to 
what level will not the meanness of empty pride descend, for the in- 
dulgence of its sensual pleasures ! — I quitted Spain for England with 
the impression that wc were a great and powerful family ; and that I 
should find elsewhere, the consideration and obsequiousness I had 
met with from the guests and dependents of my father. 

“ The haughty boy was destined to a rough lesson ! Shall I ever 
forget that first week at Eton ! — shall I -ever outlive the rceoJJection 
of the swelling heart with which I nightly retired to my pillow, after 
hearing reiterated around me the opprobrious cry of— Abednego 
the Jew 7 !’ In the course of the first day, not one of my young 
school-mates but had inquired after my brothers, Shadrach and 
Meshach. The bed I w r as moistening w T ith my tears w r as called the 
burning fiery furnace ; — and not a morsel of my food but was embit- 
tered bjr offers of a slice of pork, or other savory meats the object of 
Jewish abomination. At length I turned upon my persecutors. 
Like other badgered schoolboys, I tried, in the first instance, the for- 
ces of my puny arm, and fought, and w r as first beaten in the ring, 
and then chastised for having fought ! I bore all bravely ; because 
my triumphs as a scholar already afforded me a prospect of humiliat- 
ing my adversaries with the force of higher weapons. I felt* great- 
ness struggling within me. My aspiring soul resolved to raise itself 
above the level of the gibbering lordlings by whom I was despised. — 

‘ They shall hear of me yet — they shall feel me yet !’ w*as the inward 
suggestion that spurrred cn my lagging scholarship, till I became an 
object of general wonder ; my English verses, my proficiency as a 
Grecian, being equally themes of praise. The masters began to cite 
me among themselves as a youth of singular promise, likely to dis- 
tinguish himself in public life. Then came the habitual rejoinder — 
‘ Poor fellow ! — with such abilities, it is a thousand pities he should 
be a Jew.’ — ‘ But he is not a Jew — neither he nor his parents !’ was 
the indignant retort of the head master. 4 Impossible ! — the name ! — 
44 Abednego Osalez !’’ — Besides, look in his face , — only look at his 
face! — Eyes, — features, — hair, — there is Jew impressed in every 
lineament !’ 

44 The first time remarks of this description reached my ear, I re- 
called to mind, with bitter consciousness, the air of sadness some- 
times overspreading my father’s countenance, as he gazed on my 
own. Often, when addressed by his parasites with laudations of my 
personal beauty, I had heard him murmur, while they were admiring 
the Oriental fire of my eyes, or glossy blackness of my hair. 4 Would, 


40 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA. — ABEDNEGO. 


would that he had inherited the northern fairness of his poor mother ! 
My face may prove a disastrous portion for that noble boy !’ — Pro- 
phetic words, Basil, — as the taunts of my school-mates, and more 
polished irony of my college companions, soon taught me to my cost ! 

“ Still, though wounded and smarting, I was not desperate, — I 
hated my name, — I detested my origin, — as the source of unjust as- 
persions ; but I did not yet hate the world. Just as my father and 
grandfather had said, in extenuation of the scoffs and mistrusts of 
Cadiz, — ‘These people are ignorant and priest-ridden; their inso- 
lence merits only our pity!’ — did I say in my turn, — 4 Why heed the 
sarcasms of boys and striplings ? — The award that is to determine 
my position in life, must be pronounced by men and women !’ — But 
of the spell included in that latter word, Basil, little did I then know 
to estimate the power! — At Oxford, politics became my favorite 
study. The burning ambition of my soul was to distinguish myself 
in Parliament. I doubt whether the most fervent patriot ever panted 
with fonder desire for an occasion of serving his country, than I for 
the honors of senatorial renown. I was convinced that on the walls 
cf the House of Commons hung the escutcheon of my future enno- 
blement. It was there I had to win the laurels destined to replace 
the absence of an hereditary coronet ; — 

There , either I must live, or have no life ! 

44 Never, for a moment, did I mistrust the strength of my own 
powers. Like the Pythoness, I was conscious of the divinity within 
me. I felt myself to be master of my own destinies, and, through 
them , of the opinion of the world. It was my ambition only to raise 
myself to the level of my fellow- creatures ; to redeem myself from 
unmerited obloquy. The desire to set my foot upon the neck of j 
mankind arose in later life. As yet, I dreamed only of what appeared j 
easy of achievement, — and, so long as the illusion lasted, was at 
peace with myself, and with the world ! 

44 The covert insults that sometimes assailed me, fell unnoticed on 
my ear. The name I was about to create for myself, would soon, I 
fancied, obliterate that of Abednego Osalez ! 

44 Alas ! — how should I have shuddered — how recoiled with hor- 
ror — had any one, at that period, presumed to predict to me the hu- 
miliating career of the future A. O. !” 

CHAPTER XVI. 

It was not till after a pause of some minutes, during which the 
irritation of the Money-lender appeared somewhat soothed by the 
sympathy and interest manifested in his recital by his }mung com- 
panion, that he resumed, in a less-excited tone and manner. 

44 Mankind are more what they are made by mankind than what 
they are made by their Creator!” said Osalez. <4 The wolf is fero- 
cious because hunted from a whelp. The snake turns upon you be- 
cause you disturb and pursue it. The child grows surly, because 
unjustly coerced. But, above all, man becomes unjust . and cruel, 
because pursued with cruelty and injustice by his brother man. I 
was bom imbued with the original sin of human nature : yet certain 
am I that there were noble purposes in my soul, which the scorn of 
my fellow creatures converted into wickedness. The germ of good- 
ness was there ; but, watered with poison, it brought forth deadly 
ruits !* 

44 Full of eagerness, — full of trust in myself and others, I entered 
into life. My father made me a splendid allowance, — an allowance 
doubling that of the richest nobleman at the university ; and though 
this told against me in one sense, by the perpetual citation of 4 The 
rich Osalez — rich — rich as a Jew !’ — it enabled me to confer obliga- 
tions, ensuring me hosts of fashionable associates. For them, I was 
only 4 Osalez,’ — Osalez who had such famous hunters, such capital 
wine, and such a knowing curricle always at the service of his 
friends ; — and to be my friend was consequently the pretension of 
half my acquaintance. Those who delighted to dine and drive with 
me, or rather*/br me, introduced me to their families ; and by de- 
grees I became (on sufferance, though I little suspected it) a favored 
guest in the beau monde. I was happy, young, handsome, — as hand- 
some as the Jewish physiognomy, which my grandfather’s conver- 
sion could not efface from our hereditary nature, would permit. I 
was admired, — flattered, — followed, — nay, fancied myself beloved 

44 And why not ?” said Basil Annesley, courteously, fancying that 
his excited companion paused for the encouragement of a kindly 
word. 

44 YVhy not ? Because my name was Abednego, — and because I 
looked like a Jew ! Listen, Basil ! I had won the highest honor of 
the university; and before entering the Parliamentary career, to 
which, at that period, money secured the entree, I thought it my duty 
to visit, my father. Would I could adequately describe the rapture 
with which he welcomed me, and the pride he took in my profi- 
ciency ! Would you could have seen the passionate admiration ©f 
my poor little sister, and the partial kindness of my stepmother ! In 
that household, more splendid than almost any of those I had left in 
London, I was a demi-god ! 

44 1 would fain pass over that epoch of my life !” said Abednego, in 
a lower voice. 41 The reminiscences it must awaken, may possibly 
expose me as a weakling in your eyes. Nevertheless, to enable you 
to judge my cause, — all — all must be disclosed. 


“ It was winter, Basil. Leaving my hunters at the disposal of my 
shallow friends, I hurried to Cadiz, at a season when its climate is 
peculiarly grateful ; and, after long immurement in the murky realm 
of Great Britain, dear, indeed was my delight in the softness of that 
southern atmosphere, and the fragrance of its long. forgotten orange 
bloom. Till then, I had not imagined the intensity of enjoyment 
which pleasures so purely physical can impart. But they were not 
purely physical ! I enjoyed them so keenly, only because I shared 

them with another, — another — young, fair, noble, generous, already 

dear, and soon to become dearer than my life ! 

“ The family of an English nobleman was passing the winter at 
Cadiz, for the benefit of the health of an only son, who was supposed 

to inherit a consumptive tendency. One of his lordship’s daughters 

one of his three daughters — ” 

Again Abednego paused ; and Basil Annesley, in spite of his eager 
and growing interest in the narrative, had the forbearance to entreat 
him once more to desist from his painful task. But at that sugges- 
tion, Abednego resumed his firmness. 

“ Till my arrival at home,’’ said he, as if assuming a peremptory 
mastery over his emotions,— “ these people— these noble exiles 1 , had 
been overcome with ennui. With the exception of her to whom I 
have alluded, not one of the family was mentally endowed to find 
satisfaction in the mere behuties of nature, or the attractions of a 
strange country. Both father and sisters repined after the pleasures of 
the fashionable world ; hungering and thirsting for news of society, — 
the gossip of the clubs — the frivolities of aristocratic life ; — they wel- 
comed me, therefore, with delight. The splendid entertainments of 
my father, to whom his lordship had brought letters of introduction 
as to the first merchant of the city, and in one of whose mansions he 
was domiciled, assumed a new charm in their eyes. They were 
constantly in the society of my stepmother, who was a pleasing and 
accomplished woman ; and I, — I who appeared to belong to a world 
which, as regarded Cadiz, had hitherto been exclusively their own, — 
was admitted into their circle as a familiar and honored guest. 

“ How I loved her, Basil Annesley, that youngest and fairest 
daughter of the house, ’’ — resumed Abednego, after a short pause.— 
“ it matters not now to relate ! How she loved me, my utmost pro- 
testations would scarcely entitle you to believe ! We were of o no 
mind — one heart ! So short was our acquaintance ere it ripened 
love, and soon into intensest passion, that it were fruitless to detail 
its progress. We were constantly together. At the opera — in morn- 
ing promenades, — in marine excursions, the wealth and influence of 
my father in the city enabled me to enhance and secure tlieir enjoy- 
ments ; while the presence of the woman of my heart sufficed solely 
to my own. What a dream it was ! — what joy— what madness ! 
Restrained, however, by the presence of her sisters, and, even at her 
tender age, conscious that I should be an unacceptable suiter to her 
haughty father, she was the first to propose clandestine meetings. 
Tne gardens of our two mansions nearly adjoined; and favored by 
the climate, we met, as Southern lovers do, by stealth and in the 
quiet moonlight ; — met often, and parted undiscovered. She wa& 
already my plighted wife. It needed only her father’s sanction, to 
make her mine for ever ! By her own desire, however, my formal 
demand for her hand was still delayed. 

44 4 Your great ri«hes,’’said she, “may something avail to smooth 
down the difficulties likely to arise on the part of my family. Still 
I foresee that your Jewish name and origin will form an obstacle al- 
most insuperable. Render that name renowned, dearest Osalez, and 
half the difficulty will be overcome. Distinguish yourself in par- 
liament. Even as contact with the divinity converted a gibbet into 
the emblem of salvation, the instincts of genius consecrate with 
distinction the most ignominious origin. Come to my father to 
claim my hand as one who has commanded the applause of senates, 
and he will not presume to treat you with the disdain I apprehend !’ 

44 Stung by even the hint of scornful entreatment, my wounded 
pride stimulated me to fresh exertions : nay, gave me courage to 
bid her farewell, with a view to a speedier and more auspicious 
meeting. The family was to be in England early in the summer. — 
By that time, I doubted not that opportunity would prosper all I 
meditated. The parliameutary agent employed by my father’s Lon- 
don solicitors had made arrangements for- my coming forward for a 
Governmeut borough, on the creation of a batch of peers, whose 
patents were already, in progress. 

44 To London, therefore, I hastened ; sustained even in the an- 
guish of parting from an object engrossing every feeling of my heart 
and soul, by the ardent desire to render myself worthy, or rather 
prove myself worthy of pretending to her hand. Not a moment did 
I mistrust my own powers. The L T niversity had fixed its imprima - 
tur on my scholarship; and already the eyes of many were upon me. 
All I needed, to acquire a position in societjq was the passport which 
parliamentary distinction, more especially at the period of a nation- 
al crisis, such as was then imminent, rarely fails to confer. 

44 But alas !— the borough offered to me for purchase, by the in- 
ertness or incapacity of my agent, slipped through our hands ; and 
bitter was my disappointment on finding that a week’s delay at Ca- 
diz, conceded to the prayers of that beloved being at the moment of 
bidding her farewell, had been fatal to our prospects. So far from 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA. — ABEDNEGO. 


41 


realizing the promise I had made her, she would find me on her re- 
turn to England the same obscure individual who had quitted her ; 
and perhaps hear me rejected by her proud father as 4 the grand- 
son of Osalez the Jew !’ 

44 Distracted by this apprehension, and still more by the idea 
that, should I want courage to make the attempt, some more ap- 
propriate match might present itself, which the jealousy of her sis- 
ters (with whom she was no favorite, because the favorite of all the 
world beside) would induce his lordship to press upon her accept- 
ance, I resolved to leave no effort unattempted, however rash, to ac- 
complish my purpose. At that moment, the sudden death of one 
of the members for a Cathedral town, prospered my views. Aware 
that my father would consider no expenditure excessive which served 
our ends, I determined to dare the contest. With money — eloquence 
— an unblemished character — -the chances seemed most auspiciously 
in my favor. So, at least, I was assured by the solicitors, whose 
sole object was the augmentation of their b.ll. They advised me 

to hurry down to L— , on the assurance of having smoothed my 

way to the hustings. 

“Never shall I forget the elation of my spirits during that 
journey. I rejoiced at having declined the attendance of the men 
of business who had proposed bearing me company. For hope was 
my companion by the way ; promising all that can make glad the 
heart of youth ; a happy home, a blessed, beauteous, loving wife — 
and when tempted forth from my glad fireside, the esteem and hon- 
or of my fellow-men. 

44 Such were my feelings and aspirations, Basil, when, on a 
bright and sun shiny afternoon, I entered L — ! As I approached 
the. city, the aspect of its population seemed to possess a peculiar 
interest in my eyes ; as the people for whom [ was about to exercise 
the first flow of my intellects and human charities. They were 
about to be entrusted to my care, as a fold to the shepherd ; the con- 
stituency over whose welfare I was tq be the providence. Do you 
yet know enough of the world, young sir, to appreciate the absurdity — 
the vulgarity, of such generous emotions ?” 

The eager narrator had now worked himself anew into his former 
excitement ; and the low and mournful voice in which, as with a 
plaintive organ-stop, he had been describing his felicitous dream of 
«ar!y love, gradually gave place to harsh and abrupt impetuosity. 

' r '* 4 Well, sir ! I entered the city !” he resumed. “ You have proba- 
bly witnessed the triumphal entries of candidates on such flattering 
occasions ? Laurels, ribbons, largesses to the populace, feasting, 
junketing, music, clamor — all that money can concede or extort from 
the venal energies of popular nature. Those men of mind, whom we 
fondly call the people, gave me back with interest the huzzas I had 
purchased. But on entering the market-place, Basil, and confront- 
ing the opposition party, the first object that met my eyes was my 
own effigy roasting in the midst of a burning fiery furnace ; surround- 
ed with placards of 4 What Christian will dare to vote for Abednego 
the Jew V — 4 No circumcision !’ — 4 Now Burabbas was a robber !’ — 
with pork griskins stuck on poles — and every other insulting emblem, 
supposed to be abhorrent to my imputed faith ! 

44 I was irritated — but nothing further. Conscious of the inappli- 
cability of these whips and scorns of vulgar derision, the usual imple- 
ment of the hustings, I conceived that nothing would be easier than to 
undeceive the population of L . In almost every great assem- 

blage reason preponderates : and having in my speech, on the first 
day’s poll, uttered the most solemn denial of my imputed Judaism, 
and appealed to the support of the ecclesiastical interest of the city, 
to which I conscientiously pledged my own, I fancied the mischief 
overcome. 

44 My eloquence made a manifest sensation. I was cheered by the 
people, and encouraged by the gentry. But during the night my 
adversaries got up a farther storm of insult. Placards representing 
Shy lock, with the knife and scales in his hand, preparing to cut off 
the pound of flesh, greeted me on emerging from my inn, intermin- 
gled with representation of the martyrdom of little St. Hugh, (whose 
tomb, unfortunately, graced the adjoining c&ihedral,) the legend of 
whose barbarous murder by 4 the Jew’s daughter,* was roared round 
the hustings by a score of stentorian voices. Every time I opened 
my lip3 to address the multitude, I was interrupted with 
As it fell out one holiday, 

Small rain did fall, — 

till the name of St. Hugh of Lincoln, became indeed accursed in my 
ears ! 

“ The bigotry of Cadiz was pale and tame, in short, compared 
with that of the cathedral town! Suffice it, that after throwing 
away thousands of pounds, I lost my election* — and far more than 
my election — my trust in the justice of mankind, nay, the justice of 
Providence itself. 

“ I ask you again, Basil Annesley, was it rational that I should 
be thus reviled and rejected-— untried — unheard— and a booby Squire 
preferred in my place, simply because some wag had written on the 
walls previous to my nomination, 4 What is your name V 4 Abedne- 
go P 4 Who* gave you that name?* 4 The high priest of the syna- 
gogue, in my baptism !’ 

44 A thousand crushing thoughts came crowding into my soul 


when I re-entered London the following day. I was defeated * and 
the bitterness of a defeated candidate is proverbial. But never did 
defeat convey, like mine, extinction of every prospect ot distinction 
— every hope of earthly happiness. Parliament was the Promethean 
torch that was to endow me with vitality ; and the living spark was 
quenched ! 

“ It was then, Basil, that, for the first time, I learnt to appreciate 
the value of Money 1 In place of the Providence I was beginning to 
mistrust, the Molten Calf became my God ! I said not to myself, like 
Lucifer, 4 Evil be thou my good !’ but 4 Gold be thou my guardian 
angel!’ For the solicitors, by whose inaptitude I had been so ill 
supported, now whispered in my ear, that perhaps they might still 
be able to 'purchase a seat; and this time they so far redeemed their 
word, that, within a fortnight from the silvery whisper reaching my 
ear, a spendthrift lordling had accepted the Chillern Hundreds— -the 
credit side of my banker’s book was lessened by an item of five thou- 
sand pounds — and Abednego Osalez took his seat in the House of 
Commons. 

44 And now, Basil, now , my way seemed clear before me ! I was 
a member of the most enlightened legislative assembly in the world, 
and my reputation was in the keeping of the free press of the land 
of liberty. Forests of laurels seemed shooting up before me. I an- 
ticipated fame— l anticipated popularity — I anticipated, I — Great 
God !” exclaimed the excited man, interrupting himself; “ the flame 
of joy and triumph that swelled my veins at that moment seems 
rushing back anew into my heart, warm with all the glowing ener- 
gies of youth. All the wealth of my bursting coffers was insufficient 
to requite the enjoyment of one sunny day of the unsullied brightness 
of that boyish confidence !” 

44 But surely, in parliament , the unjust and groundless prejudice 
you have described did not pursue you?” demanded Annesley, 
deeply interested, yet almost alarmed by the vehemence of his com- 
panion. 

44 Even in parliament, sir,” resumed Abednego, in a more subdued 
tone, 44 even in the parliament of liberal England — enlightened Eng- 
land — I was still ‘Osalez, the Je\y !’ They went further, these up- 
right legislators, than the bigots of Cadiz. With them I was not the 
son of the Jew — but the Jew. Though admitting me to be, by ex- 
traction, a Spaniard — by birth, an Englishman— by faith, a Protest- 
ant, I was still 4 Osalez, the Jew !’ My name and face avouched it ; 
and are not a name and face authentic evidence, in any other spot of 
eaith than a court of justice? When I spoke well in the House, it 
was 4 well enough for a Jew;’ when ill — 4 what could be expected of 
a Jew ?’ The measures I advocated were stigmatised by the press, 
as brought forward under the protection of the Jews ; and the whole 
repertory of waggish and vulgar jocularity was unloosed against me 
every time I opened my lips. 

“ I was almost maddened. Had I entered my public career at a 
maturer period of life, I should have known how to repress such 
sneers, or how to retort upon my scorners. But I was a boy. The 
generous impulses of youth were warm within me. Writhing under 
a sense of injustice, I lost my temper. I sometimes spoke vilely — 
and then, indeed, was the cry redoubled, that 4 Tne second Daniel had 
broken down.’ 4 But, then, what could be expected of a man with 
such a name as Abednego !’ * 

44 A sarcastic member of the opposition, whose wit was armed as 
the stings of asps, attacked me one night in reply, upon an effective 
speech on the corn-laws, by which I had commanded the attention of 
the House, with the sneer that, 4 he was aware that the honorable 
member’s namesake and predecessor was memorable in scripture 
history through the persecutions of a king who fed on grass ; but it 
did not follow that the Abednego of modern times was to become 
famous by his association with Corn.’ The House was convulsed 
with laughter at this sorry jest ; and the laugh of parliament burns 
as with the caustic impress of the branding-iron. The morning pa- 
pers enlarged upon the pleasantry — which was echoed by all the un- 
derlines of the press ; and before I had been three months in the 
House of Commons, instead of commanding the attention due to my 
abilities and good faith, I had become a laughing-stock as 4 Corn-law 
Abednego !’ 

44 Still, there wai comfort in perspective. The woman 1 loved was 
too true, too good, too fond, to be influenced by the voice of vulgar 
derision. She knew that I was neither a Jew, nor the son of a Jew. 
She knew that my education had been liberal,-— mj habits of life 
luxurious; and the low-bred citations regarding Monmouth street 
and Duke’s Place over fter, at least, could have little influence. Even 
if her father should refuse me her hand, she , my tender, faithful, 
trusting love, could not recall the gift of her heart. 

44 The family returned to England, Basil; — the family which for 
months and months had accepted the hospitality of my father. Their 
door was shut in rny face. 

44 In the interim, rny engagement with her for whom I would have 
sacrificed my life, had been discovered, and all further intercourse 
between us was interdicted ! 

44 The brother was still so infirm as to afford a fair plea for retiring 
instantly into the country ; and in the aristocratic seclusion of his 
own park, the old lord fancied himself able to hold at bay the pre- 


42 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA. — ABEDNEGO. 


sumptuous importunities of the grandson of the Jew of Cadiz!’’ ' 

44 And you pursued them, of course !” Cried Basil Annesley, a 
new species of interest mingling with his curiosity. “ You accepted 
dismissal from no other lips than those of her you loved 7” 

“ I pursued them !’’ — resumed his companion, half closing his eyes, 
as if to reconcentrate himself into the illusions of retrospection. “I 
pursued them. I saw her again. We met as before, Basil — by 
Stealth. The summer nights favored our frequent interviews. Again, 
she pledged her faith to me; again she swore, through good or evil 
report, to be faithful. But we were discovered, — spare me the re- 
cital ! Through the instrumentality of her sisters, there was a cruel 
scene of detection. A struggle ensued — a fatal struggle, — the infirm 
brother was disabled. As X live and breathe, Basil, it was not I who 
inflicted the fatal injury ! But he died ! — The inquest absolved me. 
Surgical examination proved that the accidental bursting of a blood- 
vessel had proved fatal. 

4< To renew my intercourse with the family after this dreadful 
event, and the terrible publicity given to our cause of quarrel, was 
impossible. The very attempt had been an insult. My beloved 
wrote to me entreating forbearance. Overtures on my part, she said, 
would perhaps hurry her broken-hearted father into the grave. But 
still she swore again and again, with the fervid earnestness that wo- 
man only knows how to assume, that, whatever time or distance 
might divide us, for this world and the next she was my own, — 4 in 
the sight of God, my wife!’ — In the sight of God ! — Alas, even she, 
perhaps, felt that the mightiest of names might be appealed to in 
vain by so utter an outcast as Osalez the Jew !” 

44 Compose yourself, sir I” — murmured Basil in a kindly voice, on 
perceiving that big tears were rolling down the withered cheeks of 
his companion. 44 Disturb yourself no further to talk of this 

“ Now, or never!” — cried the old man, with a strong effort over 
his feelings. “I complied, Basil, with her injunctions. The Session 
was over. I returned to Cadiz with the intention of at least six 
months’ absence from England and her! But what a spot had I 
chosen to nourish my regrets ! The groves, — the gardens, — in which 
we had wandered hand in hand ; — the same white walls, steeped in 
the same moonlight, were ever around me ; — and she whose very 
soul had been conjoined there with mine in ecstatic delirium, — she 
was afar, — weeping, — lonely, — disconsolate, — waiting for me, — 
sorrowing for me ! — In that thought, however, there was comfort ! 
— My tears flowed the more, but the more soothingly, when I re- 
membered that all my sorrows were shared by that dearest of all 
human beingg ! 

44 Within three months, Basil, lrom the day of my arrival at 
Cadiz, the newspaper was placed in my hand which announced her 
marriage with another !’* 

44 What treachery !” — burst involuntarily from the lips of the 
young man, though a terrible suspicion had already presented itself 
to his mind, connecting the narrative now unfolded with the revela- 
tions of the old gardener. 

41 Treachery most monstrous and most ungrateful ?” — rejoined, 
with kindling eyes, the excited Abednego. — “ And lo ! on that day 
I swore an oath before God, — an oath to be mightily avenged, — 
avenggd on both, — on all, — the husband, — the wife, — the proud, ob- 
durate family ! — xAnd I was so ! My cry to the Almighty for 
vengeance was at least prospered !” 

“Before you proceed further, sir, consider a moment!” — inter- 
posed Basil, perplexed and distressed. — 44 Let not the excitement of 
the moment betray you into avowals which you may hereafter 
bitterly repent !” 

(i I have considered, and would fain you should know all,” — replied 
the old man in a milder tone. 44 And first, to judge me fairly, — to 
judge me leniently, — reflect upon the misery of my position ! Re- 
flect that I had ventured my 4 all of earthly happiness in that frail 
barque, and that the wreck was total!’ My hopes were withered. 
Nothing was left me in this world, — nothing but money ! In the first 
struggles of my anguish, I resigned my seat in Parliament, and ab- 
jured the country to which I had been so despitefully entreated and 
persecuted. I abandoned England. But I brought neither peace 
nor honor to my home. My father, whose highest ambition s were 
baffled by my despair, became himself surly and desponding ; and 
domestic comfort was gradually banished from our household ! 

44 It was probably the gloom thus engendered that caused my 
young sister to look abroad for happiness. Soon after my return, her 
mother died ; and thus left alone with her fractious father and surly 
brother, the poor girl bestowed her affections on the only individual 
admitted within our doors, Verelst, — whom her father had engaged 
for her tuition in painting, — though, as a man of genius travelling for 
the perfectionment of his art, superior to the ordinary condition of an 
ordinary professor. 

44 When apprized of her attachment, my animosity to the young 
German, who could afford no home to the cherished flower of our 
fireside, and whom I unjustly accused of interested views in his 
attachment, sufficed to prove that I had suffered persecution and 

learnt no mercy ! 1 advised my father to drive the needy adven- 

turer from our gates ; and the consequence was the flight and dis- 


astrous marriage of my sister, which precipiated my poor mortified 
father into the grave. ^ 

44 1 was now the master of millions ! The efforts long made by 
my father for the realization of his property, with a view to quitting 
Spain, had, by this time, brought to bear the centralization of our 
capital. It was, hotvever, indispensable for the completion of this 
object, retarded by the old man’s death, that I should visit the East ; 
in various parts of which my predecessors had maintained mercan- 
tile establishments. The expedition pleased me. I wished to behold 
mankind in an unconventionized condition. I wanted to look upon 
the land which had given birth fo my ill-fated race. Already my 
views of social morality were sufficiently disorganized ; — in the 
East, I thoroughly threw ofl the prejudices of civilization. To be- 
hold other creeds established as firmly, and producing results as be- 
neficial, and more consonant with the demands of climate and coun- 
try than Christianity, convinced me that the all-seeing God, — to 
whom altars, like thrones, are but the footstools of his power, — who, 
for his own wise purposes, has apportioned the faith of the Mussul- 
man to one tropic, of the Brahmin to another, — who revealed, by the 
lips of his prophets, centuries and centuries before the birth of Christ, 
the great sacrifice of Redemption, and the cruelty of the Hebrews 
by which alone it was accomplishable, — must behold with sentiments 
of mercy, wide from the vengeance imputed to Him by the implaca- 
ble mind of man, the hereditary responsibility of the children of 
Israel for the predestined crime of their forefathers ! Thencefor ward 
the Jews, with whom I was classed, became, in my eyes, as any 
other people ; save in being more unjustly aspersed, and consequent- 
ly more deserving commiseration. 

44 Amid the succeeding changes of religion and legislation I was 
compelled to witness, — variations which render morality a matter of 
latitude and longitude, and the virtues of one hemisphere the vices 
of the other, — I began to look around me for a substantial and 
tangible standard of merit. 4 What,’ I exclaimed, 4 what consti- 
tutes right and wrong ? — where is the Positive, where the True 7’ — 
The answer was 4 GOLD !’ Basil Annesley ! 

44 Who will deny that, over all nations and languages, — under the 
tyranny of one or the tyranny of many, — the majesty of the crown or 
the majesty of the tiara, — Mammon holds the preponderating influ- 
ence? Gold, gold, gold, constitutes the To Kalon, — the sdk\ r: 
vinity, — the Jehovah of the universal earth ! 

44 Once convinced of this, 1 bowed down my knee and worshipped ! 
Long and eagerly in search of some First Cause in which to put my 
trust, I cried aloud with joy when I had found it ! My wandering 
ark had stuck upon the top of an Ararat ; and I sought no better 
land as a resting-place for the sole of my foot ! 

CHAPTER XVII. 

“ For five years or more I abided in the East — in splendor and 
enjoyment a very satrap ! — Meanwhile, great revolutions were ac- 
complishing in Europe- Thrones were flung down, — dynasties ex- 
tinguished. The consequence of the French Revolution had made 
themselves felt even in the country so belabored into subordination 
by the rattan of sceptre and croier ; — and England still trembled t@ 
her centre ! 

44 It was not in England, however, I was minded to abide. I hat- 
ed her hypocritical institutions. I despised her pretended zeal for 
Christianizing the forms of the world ; yet ever gainsaying, by her 
practices, the spirit of Christianity : persecuting, on pretence of re- 
senting persecution, the wretched remnant of the children of Israel ; 
yet faithless to the holy doctrines of the Cross whenever they tra- 
verse her vices or reprove her hardness of heart ! 

44 France, if more a sinner, was at least candid and explicit in her 
sins ; and indifferent, as a naturalized subject of Spain, to the war 
at that moment'proceedir.g between the Directory and Great Britain, 
I hurried to Paris, to reap the fruitful harvest of pleasure of my gol- 
den sowing. 

14 At that epoch, society, disorganized by the still recent Revolu- 
tion, was vibrating with those irregular oscillations which precede 
the restoration of order. It was the very moment for a man, intent, 
like myself, upon the lawless pursuit of pleasure, to purchase, at an 
easy cost, a variety of cumbrous spoils which the reGent political con. 
vulsions had left masterless. A princely hotel in the capital, — a 
noble country residence, once royal, situated on the wooded shores of 
the Seine, enabled me to establish myself with a degree of magnifi- 
cence more than rivalling that of the Fermiers Generaux flourishing 
under the auspices of monarchical corruption. All that was left of 
aristocracy in Paris crowded to my fetes, to luxurate in a renewal of 
sensual pleasures long withheld from their enjoyment. Half of the 
Almanack des Gourmands , Basil, was composed upon the strength of 
experiments made in my kitchen ; — and the last effective notes of 
Garat were uttered in my Salle de Concert ! 

44 No need to corrupt your unsullied imagination, boy, by the des- 
cription of my effeminate pleasures ! They were such as Sardana- 
palus might have envied ; — they were such as the ghoft of the Mare- 
chal de Richelieu should have risen to share; — they were such, that 
(experience having instructed me in the finite and transient nature of 
physical enjoyment, and the ennui that follows it like a spectra! 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA. — ABEDNEGO. 


43 


shadow) I have since discerned a charm in privation and abstinence, 
as a contrast to the wearisome repletion of former days. 

44 Still, while it lasted, that bewilderment of tumultuous pleasures 
was indeed intoxicating ! — The first artists, wits, and men of letters 
of the day, crowded into my gilded saloons ; even as, before and 
since, they beset the antechambers of royal tj^. Among others, Tal- 
leyrand, the cynical ex-bishop, and high-bred, future prince, was my 
frequent companion ; and in our luxurious seclusion, what epigrams 
did we not venture upon the servilities of the human race, — what 
blasphemies against all creeds and faiths, save that of — the Golden 
Calf! 

** Amid this chaos of political and moral disorganization arose the 
Consulate and Napoleon ! — I took little heed of politics. An avowed 
Epicurean, I cared only for peace or war as an obstacle or facilita- 
tion to my pleasures ; and though war becomes a bitter penalty in 
barren England, — compelled to seek from the Continent all her ac- 
cessories of sensual enjoyment, — self-sufficing, fertile, joyous France, 
looks upon the closing of her ports without anxiety. I rejoiced 
among the rest, however, when Consular negotiation brought about 
a cessation of hostilities between the rival countries ; for it filled me 
with glorious hopes to witness the arrival of those shoals of English 
travellers who never fail to rush to Paris, when occasion serve, for 
flinging aside their pall of national gloom. 

“ What triumph to deny them access to my house ! — What delight 
to tantalize them with exclusion from the brilliant hospitalities of the 
wealthy Spaniards ; for I was now redeemed from one species of 
obloquy. In Paris, religion had ceased to obtain mention from lips 
polite. Osalez the Jew would have been more nor less to them than 
Osalez the Gheber ; and whether I worshipped the God of Christians, 
or the god Fo, was a matter of indifference to those who quaffed my 
Sillery and tasted my Salmis. Even the name of Osalez had, how- 
ever, become so distasteful to me, from its connexion with my mis- 
fortunes, that, from the moment of settling in Paris, I assumed that 
of Clerval, derived from the estate I had purchased on my naturali- 
zation. 

44 Even as I had predicted scarcely were the fetes given for the 
celebration of the Peace of Amiens (of which those of the Hotel de 
Clerval were by far the most gorgeous) at an end, when I was beset 
with applications from English aristocrats aspiring to the honor of 
’/aaintance, and access to my gallery arid table. Having visit- 
ed Paris to amuse themselves, they seemed to care little at whose 
cost they were amused. 

“ I had no fear of recognition. The burning sun of the East, and 
the habits of a luxurious satrap, had so thoroughly effaced from my 
features all trace of the boy-member, whom their levity had formerly 
cought down, as to place an irreconcileable incongruity between the 
presumptous Jew of Cadiz and Clerval the Millionary. I was ac- 
counted in Paris the finest of fine gentlemen. Having formed an 
intimacy in the East with the beautiful Mrs. Grant, now the grace- 
ful and popular wife of Talleyrand, Monsieur de Clerval was con- 
sidered to occupy, in the fashionable circles of Neuilly, Rainey, and 
Ramhouillet, the posts engrossed by the libertine Due de Lauzun 
prior to the Revolution, 

“On the other hand, my enormous wealth constituted a rock 
against which innumerable shallow vessels, launched upon the decep- 
tions sea of Pleasure by fool-hardy London, were successively split 
to pieces. Wherever they attempted competition with the opulent 
Clerval, whether as regarded financial speculation, or the briefer 
madness of the gaming-table, ruin ensued. I retained my prodigious 
funds in a floating and tangible f@rm : nor was it by means of mort- 
gages or annuities I had to meet the pretensions of the enervate lord- 
lings who presumed to confront me in my path, instead of treading 
at an humble distance in my footsteps. What chance, therefore, I 
entreat you, had the empty fops of White’s whose capital was con- 
tained in the embroidered note-book in their waistcoat pockets, 
against one who, in the days when Rothschilds were not, was able to 
influence, by his financial operations, half the money-markets, in 
Europe ? 

“ Among the first who fell a prey to my strength of courage and 
purse at the gambling-table, was the husband of the elder of those 
insolent sisters of the object of my affection, by whose malice my 
early hopes had been so cruelly blighted. Lord Willesden, (suffer 
me to conceal under that designation the title of my victim,) was one 
of those self-sufficient profligates who, on the pavement of St. James’s 
street, acquire the authority of a potentate. Arriving in Paris with 
Charles Fox, flushed by his previous triumphs at White’s, and inso- 
lent with the favor of Carlton House, the London puppy affected, in 
the first instance, the same air of defiance, when dining at Legacq’s 
the Pavilion de Hanovre, to which his recognised position in his own 
country lent at least some color. For a time he affected to brave 
the man he could not aspire to surpass ; — nor was it till he had lost 
five thousand livres to me on parole, that he was forced to recognise 
my superiority. 

“ Heartbroken by his system of profligacy, Lady Willesden was 
now a confirmed iifralid, and rarely quitted her hotel. We had, con- 
sequently, never met j but her lord (launched in the full career of 
dissipation, affording hope to the Parisians that a new Phoenix was 


arising from the ashes of their former dissoluteness) was my constant 
associate. 

“ Six weeks after his arrival in Paris, Lord Willesden was a ruined 
man, — ruined beyond hope, — beyond redemption ! His estates, his 
houses, his plate, his jewels, were pledged to those to whom I furnish- 
ed the funds, destined to flow back, a refluent Pactolus, into my gol- 
den coffers- Hazard and roulette had made the haughty aristocrat 
my slave! — My foot was upon his neck, and upon the neck of his 
children’s children ! — At that period, Basil, I was stern of heart as 
some devastating monster of antiquity! — Cruelty was my luxury, — 
revenge my pride !— But that cruelty had been engendered by evil 
entreatment ; and it was perforce of scourging and torture that my 
nature waxed so hard ! 

“ I now possessed a thousand advantages over the people by whom 
I had been persecuted into wickedness, and not one of them was neg- 
lected. Every night, when I retired to my luxurious couch, and 
ground my teeth in eestasy over the recollection of the day’s pleas- 
ures, it was, indeed, an enhancement to them to reflect, that not a 
mischief I was working but conveyed anguish to the bosam of the 
countrymen by whom I had been so unjustly reviled. Those who 
had ‘ spat upon my Jewish gaberdine* were making heavy atone- 
ment for the fault. I now trampled upon them in my turn. Talk of 
a bed of roses, Basil Annesley !— Commend me to the couch whose 
pillows are inflated by the swelling sighs of a prostrate enemy; — to 
the slumbers soothed by the murmurs of ” 

He paused ! — An involuntary shudder betraying the disgust of his 
companion had startled him into silence. But it was too late. The 
innate prejudice, long dormant in the soul of Basil, involuntarily re- 
traced these works of malice to the Jewish origin of Osalez. For 
the first time, the young man beheld in his companion a legitimate 
descendant of the tribe who drove nails into the hands and feet, and 
pierced the side of the meek Jesus of Nazareth ! 

So forcibly was this feeling of estrangement depicted in the coun- 
tenance of the young man, that, in resuming his narrative, Abednego 
hazarded no further reference to the animosities by which his ven- 
geance had been actuated. 

“ Suffice it,”- he resumed, in a milder tone of voice, “that, while 
realizing in the more refined West the warm imaginings of a luxurious 
Oriental, I did not lose sight of those still pro founder passions, and 
keener anticipations, engendered by the cold-blooded persecutions of 
English pride. 

“Lord Willesden had become my puppet. The fastidious London 
coxcomb moved only at my beck and bidding. But though he was 
my daily guest, — sometimes at my brilliant hotel, sometimes at my 
princely country seat, — I scrupulously abstained from entering his 
doors. My pretext for declining his invitation was the infirm health of 
Lady Willesden, and a disinclination to intrude upon the sober domes- 
ticities of an invalid fireside ; by which means I contrived to excite 
an interest in my favor in the mind of the afflicted wife. My indul- 
gence as a creditor, and liberality as an associate, as yet prevented 
all rumors of her husband’s new follies and prodigalities from reach- 
ing her ears ; and hearing of Monsieur de Clerval only a hospitable 
host, a paragon of refinement courted in the best society, she felt 
grateful for the deference which kept him aloof from her impoverished 
seclusion. 

“Though vain and dissolute, Willesden was fond of his wife, — 
that is, fond of her after the selfish fashion of the mere egotist. It 
would have been a relief to him, had he left her behind him in Eng- 
land, to have suddenly received tidings of her decease. But he could 
not bear to see her suffer. Conscious of the injuries he was inflicting 
upon her and her children, he shrunk from the spectacle of her alter- 
ed countenance. The more ill and enfeebled she became, the deeper 
he plunged into excesses that banished all recollections of his embit- 
tered home. 

“ One morning, he entered my breakfast-room earlier than usual, 
and throwing himself into a causeuse , began to execrate, in his ordi- 
nary strain, his ill-luck of the night before. 

“ 4 It is all Maria’s fault/ cried he. 4 The foolish woman fancies 
it disturbs her to hear the porte cocker e open in the dead of night ; and 
protests she lies awake awaiting the signal of my return home. By 
these means, she has exacted a promise from me not to remain out 
after three ; and the consequence is that, last night, just as the luck 
began to turn in my favor, I was forced to quit the table.* 

“ 4 You were quite right,’ said I, adhering to my system of defer- 
ence towards his wife’s exactions. 4 No occasion to become a brute 
because you are a roue. What are a few thousand livres more or less 
compared with an additional pang, inflicted on a suffering woman, 
already more than sufficiently injured?’ 

44 Willesden never liked his wife less than when I affected to defend 
her cause. 4 Confound the whole sex and their united injuries !’ was 
his brutal rejoinder. 4 It becomes you , forsooth, Clerval, to advocate 
the cause of these charming martyrs. Unshackled by the iron fet- 
ters oflawful wedlock, you behold in them a bevy of angels. My dear 
fellow, the mere saunterer in a garden beholds the roses in their 
bloom, worships their beauty and sweetness ; but the proprietor, 
who is fated to see the leaves fall one by one, leaving only a thorny, 
useless haw behind, is apt to find his enthusiasm evaporate. — 


44 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA. — ABEDNEGO. 


N’imvorte ! ray matrimonial prospects are brightening ! Next week, 
I shall be at liberty to observe the sun rise where and how I please. 
My wife’s sister is coming over from England to nur>e her. Maria 
has been despatching, I suspect, such doleful accountof ray neglects, 
that her family consider it necessary she should be better cared for !’ 

<4 Judge, B .si!, how the blood, which for a moment had receded to 
my heart, leaving my guilty cheeks colorless, rushed anew to my face 
when Lord Willesden, in answer to my almost breathless inquiries ac^ 
quainted me with the name* of his expected visitant Yes! It was 
herself, — it was the object of my first and only attachment ! The 
husband, I thanked Heaven, was nut to bear her company : his mili- 
tary duties rendering it impossible for him to leave England. She 
was to come alone, as the affectionate attendant of her dying sister. 

*« Never shall I forget the tumultuous nature of my feelings during 
the remainder of the day on which this intelligence was communicat- 
ed. The ground appeared unsteady under my feet ; the atmosphere 
too light to satisfy my respiration. I scarcely knew how to meet the 
singular occasion that presented itself for the gratification of the 
hungry vengeance I had been cherishing like some beast of prey in 
the darksome depth of my soul. 

“A few more days, and she arrived. With assumed carlessness 
did 1 proceed to question Lord Willesden concerning his sister in law ; 
and with apparent indifference I heard that she had been wedded 
against her will, and was a repining wife and unexulting mother. 

44 4 Thank Heaven,’ was Wiilesden’s concluding phrase, 4 she will 
be content to devote herself to the sick-room. Though still in the 
prime of life, poor soul, the w r orld has ceased to attract her. So long 
as she can be induced to remain here, therefore, I am at liberty Jo 
d vert myseif to my heart’s content.’ ^ 

- “From that moment, my influence over Wilhsden was exercised 
With wholly different views. Affecting deep compassion for the posi- 
tion in which he had placed his children, I was constantly preaching 
r^lormation. Aware of the feebleness of his nature, I was certain 
t at every time his fair sister-in-law pleaded the cause of his injured 
family, or implored him to renounce his fatal propensity for play, 
he would exclaim, ‘You are almost as great a bore as Clerval ! — 
Just such t the arguments which my fiend is perpetually gusing ! 
Clerval protests that a husband and father has no pretext for indulg- 
mg in vulgar ibertinism.’ 

44 I was careful, nevertheless, while figuring in the novel charac- 
ter of a Mentor, not to neglect the care of my reputation as a man 
of gallantry. The sick-room of Lady Willesden was frequent d by 
the Duchess of Gordon, and half-a-dozen other Englishwomen of 
rank, who glittered in the gay world of Paris during the brief cessa- 
tion of hostilities between the two countries; and I spared no pains 
to render my name a constant topic of discussion in their fastidious 
circle. Never had fetes excited so supreme a sensation as those 
which I devised to dazzle the eyes of my unsuspecting contry wo- 
men, — never was exclusiveness so insolent as that which I affected 
concerning their admittance within my gates. Sometimes, those 
gates unclosed for the diverson of hundreds of guests, who were feted 
with the prodigality and fancifulncss of some Arabian tale. Srme- 
times, the number of the favored was limited to a single fortunate 
groupe, — and not a syllable allowed to transpire of the nature of the 
entertainment, of which the amount of the cost was alone cited by 
by the envious ; till, like Louis XVI., I was honored by the frivolous 
beauties of the day with the name of ‘ The Enchanter.* 

44 My object was speedily accomplished. I learnt from Willesden 
that my peculiarities excited considerable curiosity in his family 
circle. 

44 4 Lady Willesden seems revived as by a miracle, by her sister’s 
arrival V said he one day as we were dashing back to Paris from the 
Chateau de Clerval, at the utmost speed of a set of fine English 
horses, to be in time for theopera; 4 and the first symptom of her 
reviving health is her inquisitiveness about yourself. These- women 
want to make your acquaintance Clerval. When will you come and 
dine with me ?” 

“ Wiih sudden reserve, I pleaded old standing engagements for a 
fortnight to come ; and Willesden being perfectly aware that many of 
these were of my own ci cation, the sensitiveness cf an embarrassed 
man attributed my reluctance to join his little circle to the distress of 
his fireside, and i lie defects of an unaccomplishedcook. 

44 4 1 am aware,* he retorted, 4 that I have nothing to attract an 
Amphytrion like yourself. Nor should I have presumed to invite 
Monsieur de Clerval, the gastronome, to fast at my humble b ard, 
but for the importunity of my sister-in-law, who is eager to make 
your acquaintance. Your munificence as a patron of the arts (of 
which she has l iken it into her flighty head to become a votary, to 
console herself, 1 suppose, for the disappointment* of defeated affec- 
tions) have strangely*excited her interest in your favor * 

44 1 bowed and smiled, but made no move towards conciliating the 
wish thus intimated. On the contrary, the plainer his hints the more 
resolutely I k< pt aloof. At length, alarmed lest he might estrange 
me from himself by further pertinacity, Lord Willesden ceased to 
importune me to visit his house ; and my firmness served only to aug- 
ment the restless curiosity of those against whose peace my manoeu- 
vres were conco' ,t<1 d. But I had seen her again. From my box at 


the opera, in the public promenades, I had held the object still and 
ever dearest to my heart ; and the sight of her did but stiil further sti- 
mulate my projects., of vengeance. She had now attained the full 
maturity of womanly charms. The lovely girl of eighteen had be- 
come the beautiful and commanding woman of thirty. How beauti- 
ful, the admiration she attracted, whenever seen by glimpses in the 
society of Paris, sufficiently attested ; how beautiful, the tumults of 
my own distracted heart, as I hurried on such occasions from her pre- 
sence, afforded a far more painful proof. Unrestrained in all other 
pursuits and inclinations, the caution and self-control I was forced to 
observe in this , served only to augment the force of my passion. I 
was becoming madly and desperately in love, — far more desperately 
than when, with the purer fervor of boyhood, I wooed her to become 
my bride. 

“ I appreciated too highly, Basil, the gentle nature of that beloved 
being, to suppose it possible, the mere dazzle ments of vanity would 
suffice for her captivation. I knew that she must respect the man, 
as well as admire the patron, before the brilliant Clervel created any 
serious impression on her feelings. To effect this, I contrived, that 
in all her little acts of charity, my name should reach her as before- 
hand with her in the duties of benevolence. She could not extend her 
hand to the orphan or the widow, but she encountered mine already 
outstretched in mercy. Many of these instances were mere clap- 
traps, got up to attract her notice. By the aid of Money, Basil, any. 
thing may be manufactured to order, — even 4 Cases of extreme dis- 
tress — and little did that humane 'woman suspect that the wants 
she fancied herself to be relieving were as much an effort of art as the 
|cencry of the Grand Opera.” 

V‘ I scarcely conceive, sir” suddenly interrupted Basil Annesley, 

“ tlje advantage likely to arise to either of us from these confi- 
dences. If mi iffusion of penitence, it is not for me to grant you ab- 
solution ; if ^matter of vaunt, as I would fasn retain some respect 
for my benefactor, I entreat you to refrain from avowals which are 
gradually exciting my disgust.” 

“ H ear me toT’an end,” cried Abednego. “ I address you neither 
in a tone of bodstfulness nor of whining remorse ; but as a man, hav- 
.ing wrestled harfd to hand with the sorest temptations and trials cf 
life, willing to impart to one he dearly loves the fatally-earned fruity ^ 
iris experience ! — All I can do to favour your squeamish tender heart-' 
edness, is to pass over briefly the snares with which I encompassed 
the path of my destined victim, — sometimes hoping, but oftener des- 
pairing of success. But if unable the second time to conquer her 
affections, I was resolved at least to humble her pride. 

44 Spring was in its prime, when I announced one of those gorgeous 
entertainments which, once in every month, used to set the fashion- 
able wrorld of Paris into commotion. It was to be a daylight fete at 
my chateau on the SAne ; and a flotilla of Venetian barges, long in 
preparation was launched for the purpose of conveying my guests to 
the landing stairs. It was speedily rumored among the invited, that 
not a sing £ English person was to be included among the guests of 
Monsieur de Clerval ; and though Willesden, my constant compa- 
nion, flattered himself, that, as a matter of course, an exception would 
be made in his favor, I took an early opportunity to inform him that, 
having an especial object for my Fete des Lilacs , I was forced to ex- 
clude him among the rest of the English pretendants. 

44 Though evidently nettled by communication, Willesden wa 3 
loo deeply my debtor to hazard a s> liable of remonstrance. Attri- 
buting the word 4 object’ to some reigning lady of my thoughts, he 
ventured to banter me concerning the mysterious liaison demanding 
such vast concessions ; and I replied in terms oj romantic gallantry, 
'which, I justly surmised, would be repeated by his fireside, and serve 
only to excite a new interest in my favor. 

44 Without intending it, Willesden was constantly betraying to 
me the fruition of my schemes. I found that I was a perpetual sub- 
ject of discussion at his house. While informing me how often he 
wa3 forced to become my champion with his wife and sister, his 
silly vanity exposed faj^more than he intended. He did not disguise 
from me how grievously his lovely guest was mortified to find herself 
excluded from the only house in Paris she had the slightest curiosity 
to enter. 

“ I looked grave ; and when Lerd Willesden again approached the 
subject, abstained wholly from his society — and even issued orders 
for his non admission to my house; — nay, if we met, by chance, in 
the Bois de Boulogne, I assumed so cold and louring a countenance, 
that the poor man was terrified by the wrath he had provoked. 

“ The amount of I O U’s and bonds, bearing- his signature, in my 
strong box, rendered it unsafe for him to give offence to one so poten- 
tial. Had I not reason for self-gratulation ?— Abednego the Jew had 
reduced the insolent English peer to the most abject subservience ? 

* 4 By degrees, he was compelled to assume a still viler attitude. 
The embarrassment of his affairs rendered a still further levy of mo- 
ney indispensable ; and not a banker could be found to assist him. 
Thus circumstanced, in a foreign country, the straits to which 
he was reduced became alarming : but I had so olt#i obliged him, 
and had of late assumed so forbidding a countenance, that to me he 
dared not apply. Little suspecting that the whole afftir was of my 
contrivance, he met me in the world as though nothing had occurred ; 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA. — ABEDNEGO. 


45 


nor was it till the humiliation of finding his wife and guest on the eve 
of becoming homeless, drove him to the application, he once more 
addressed me in the subdued tone of a suppliant. 

44 Before the request had half escaped his lips, it was granted ; nay 
the amount of the loan he desired was trebled, and forced upon him ; 
till, in the exuberance of his gratitude, Lord Willesden would, I verily 
believe, have subscribed to any terms his creditor saw fit to propose. 

44 Do not perplex yourself about such a mere trifle 1’ said I, — * I am 
only too happy to assist you. If you wish, iny dear Willesden, to 
oblige me in your turn, all I have to ask is, that you will admit me, 
as a friend, into your family cirple, in spite of any remonstrances that 
may be addressed to you by lady Willesden and her sister.* 

44 4 Remonstrances ?** repeated the astonished Willesden. “ Why, 

I have been hinting to you for the last six weeks the earnest desire 
of the latter to make your acquaintance.* 

e * 4 The lady’s good intentions may subside after she has seen me. 
Besides, I shall not be satisfied with the concessions of mere acquain- 
tanceship. The object of my ambition is, to stand pre-eminent in her 
favor.* 

“‘In that case, my dear Cierval, I cannot flatter you with much 
prospect of success/ replied Wiiiesden, somewhat embarrassed. 

4 Though unhappy in her marriage, she is incapable of losing sight of 
her duties as a wife and a mother.* 

44 4 Of course ! — All your English ladies are so rigid in their prin- 
ciples— so correct in their conduct — that one cannot but wonder how 
such libels as divorce bills are suffered to go unpunished.’ 

14 4 I am not vaunting the virtue of my sister in-law,’ replied Lord 
Willesden ; the blood mantling in his sallow cheek, convincing me 
that nothing but his obligations towards me prevented him from 
knocking me down. 4 She has no heart to bestow. In early life, she 
formed a low connexion, the effects of which, my poor wife assures 
me, she has never been able to throw off.* 

44 It was now my turn to flush with anger ; and the insolence of the 
noble insolvent confirmed me in my evil projects. 

44 ‘No oneis able to calculate upon the caprices and fantasticalities 
of woman’s nature,* said L 4 All I ask of you is a solemn promise 
that, whatever ungratiousness may be testified towards me by Lady 
Willesden and her sister, you will not deny my access to your house.’ 

• 4 * T P^ny you access V cried his lordship. 4 You, — my best friend, 
— L y benefactor ! — You, who throughout the winter I have been 
courting as a guest ? — Absurd !* 

44 4 Absurd perhaps. But having hitherto resisted your pressing 
invitations, I will not even now accept them, unless under a written 
guarantee that my welcome is secured.’ 

“ Af er the numberless obligations he had signed in my favor, this 
appeared a trifling concession ; and laughing heartily at my squeam- 
ishness, Lord Willesden entered readily into what appeared to be a 
joke, by drawing up a paper ensuring me access to his house at all 
hours, and under all possible circumstances. 

44 I conclude that, with certain modifications, he announced my 
sudden caprice to his wife ; for I had reason to know that my visit 
was now hourly expected and prepared for. I chose, however, to be 
expected in vain ! — nearly a month passed and Willesden must have 
attributed the wayward conditions I had dictated to some momen- 
tary whim ; for, so far from availing myself of the permission I had 
dictated to some momentary whim; for, so far from availing myself 
of the permission I had extorted, I abstained from associating even 
with himself. Curiosity and interest were, accordingly, excited to the 
strongest in his family circle, concerning the man whose movements 
were erratic as those of a meteor ; and on my announcing a second 
sumer enterrtainment at my chateau, La fete de Roses , w.th similar 
restrictions as to the English, with the single exception of Lord Wil- 
lsden’s family, I rightly conjectured that my invitation would be ac- 
cepted with giatitude. 

44 Money constitutes the magic of our epoch. But Paris, above 
all other places, affords an auspicious field for the exercise of the 
fairy wand endowed by prodigality. Resolved that the last fete of 
the rqysterious Cierval should excel all his previous efforts, I was 
ably seconded by the genius of that new Renaissance des arts , fos- 
tered under the auspices of the Consulate. But the enormous outlay 
(rumors of the amount of which afforded ample occupation to the 
wonderers of the great world) was produced less by the splendor of 
the entertainment, than by my conceit of producing on the banks of 
the Seine, an exact republication of those well-remembered gardens 
of Cadiz, the scene of the happiest moments of my life. The illusion 
was complete. Tree for tree, arbor for arbor, the spot which ha l d 
witnessed my midnight interviews with her, was reproduced for the 
occasion. 

“It wasfAerc, Basil, I received her ! — It was there I advanced to 
welcome that repining wife, when, in all the exuberance of matronly 
beauty, and leaning on the arm of her brother-in-law, she beheld be- 
fore her the injured lover of her youth.’’ 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

“ In the perversity of my heart, Basil Anncsley, I anticipated with 
confidence the success of my projects. The humiliations of former 
days were effaced by a series of triumphs. Everything, of late had 


prospered with me; and long accustomed to the adoration of tho 
vain and interested, I doubted not that the woman described tome as 
a 4 repining wife,’ would be content to atone for all I had undergone 
for her sake. 

“ But while triumphing in the strength of our own vices, we are 
apt to calculate too largely on the weakness of others. Whether as 
the arbitrary voluptuary of the East, or the corrupt Epicurean of 
Paris, my experience had not prepared me for the integrity of heart, 
— the selt-respect, — the purity, — the feminine pride arrayed against 
my pretensions. She not only resented the n anceuvres by 
which she had been betrayed into my presence, but rejected as an 
insult, my protestations of unaltered attachment. 

44 Had I approached her in a less presumptuous guise, had I ap- 
peared before her poor,— hiunbie, — friendless, the promptings of her 
heart might have sttfod my Aiend. But she despised the proud and 
ostentatious man^ho stood ^before her as a conqueror. Her clear 
understanding, her upright jhirposes were not to be baffled by my 
shallow intrigues ; ^.nd the n€t in whose meshes my subtlety had en- 
tangled her shallow brotheifin-lavv was unable to enfold her in its 
meshes. I have not courage* to recite the opprobrious terms in which 
she manifested her insigbtMtfto iny views and character. 

4 4 4 My father and family^udged wisely !* said she; 4 and I now 
admit that I was blinded to yout real character by ray partial affec- 
tions ! The penally invoked by the blaspheming Jew 3 upon them- 
selves and their children’s children has converted even you, Osalez, 
into a worshipper of Matnmon. You have attempted to dazzle, by 
your gorgeous prodigal ifcyf the heart that might have been moved to 
seek you out in penury*dr affliction. My father was right. There 
exists no real sympathy between us.” 

“Judge of my indignation,— judge of my despair, on hearing from 
her own lips this bitter condemnation! Alternately disposed to 
throw myself at her feet and admit the justice of her sentence, and 
to turn upon herself the vengeance that had already manifested it- 
self towards her family, I felt, when she withdrew in all the dignity 
of wounded pride from my presence, that the whole aim of my exis- 
tence was frustrated ! for two following da> s I shut myself up in surly 
desperation. On the third, I emerged from my solitude, with the 
amended purpose of imploring forgiveness, and offering an atone- 
ment. She was gone ! She had quitted Paris ! Mistrusting the 
protection of her brother-in-law, she was on her road to England,— 
to the safe. keeping an honorable husband ! 

44 4 My unfortunate sister is the companion of my inauspicious jour- 
n y,’ said the letter she addressed to me from Dover. 4 Should the 
effort prove too much for her declining health, it is you who will 
have sentenced her to death. Apprized by Lord Willesden of his 
rnsolvency and the ruin of her innocent children, she had not cour- 
age to abide, in a strange land, the penalty likely to be enforced by a 
nature ruthless as your own. Her husband remains behind to an- 
swer you with his person. Do your worst. If you dare, render 
Lord Wiiiesden your prisoner — as he is already your dupe !’ ’* 

44 But you did not dare !” interrupted Bisii Anncsle}^, whose 
mind seemed suddenly relieved from some terrible apprehension, 
44 You had not courage to inflict a further injury on this noble-minded 
woman 1” 

44 You say truly. I had not. But others were more relentless. 
Some months after her return to England, slanderous tongues an- 
nounced to her husband that my flagitious scheming had prospered. 
As I live and breathe, Basil, I had no share in the tale of scandal. 
It was the diabolical invention of some enemy. Yet, groundless as 
it was, it drove the unhappy man to his grave. He perished, Basil 
Annesley, at the head of his regiment, on the field of honor ; but it 
was with the cruel conviction that his wife was an adulteress, and 
his unborn child the offspring of shame. Unhappy woman ! To be 
cursed with a husband and a lover alike incapable of appreciating the 
virtue of her soul ! 

44 The poor atonement in my power to offer, was not withheld. 
But far more contumeliously than ever her proud father had rejected 
me, did she decline the offer of my hand. Regarding me as the as- 
sassin of her brother, the murderer of her husband, she spurned mo 
from her presence. She spoke of her duty towards her children. 
Her children ! The girl had been, by its father’s will, already with- 
drawn from her protection, as unworthy to preside over her educa- 
tion. The boy — the innocent boy now nestling in her bosom — had 
been rejected by him as the offering of a crime. Basil — Basil ! 
Why did not your little hands upraise themselves to intercede in my 
behalf?” 

44 My presentiments, then, have not deceived me ?” cried the young 
man, starting from his seat. 44 It is, indeed, my dear and unfortu- 
l nate mother who has been through life your victim !” 

44 My victim? There was not an earthly sacrifice I would not 
have made but to obtain permission to become the humblest of her 
household servants! My victim? — No, no! — I was hers! — Mad- 
dened by her indifference, her abhorrence, I now rushed into the most 
frantic excesses. I flew to the gaming-table. The cold, calculating 
Cierval played, for once, like a child. 

44 My lucky star deserted me. My long-boasted opulence was 
gradually melting away. Even the securities I held in pledge from 


46 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA. — ABEDNEGO. 


Willesden, were at length staked and lost, — lost to those who did not 
hesitate to expose him to reprisals, attributed by his unfortunate wife 
and family to myself. 

«« On the brink of ruin, I looked around me for some desperate 
chance whereby to retrieve my fortunes, or achieve an honorable 
death. War was waging in Germany, and I joined the army of the 
Sambre and Meuse as a volunteer. By degrees my heart warmed to 
the standard under which I had enlisted. All other pains and pleas- 
ures exhausted, the excitement arising from a military career under 
an able and dauntless commander was a bewildering novelty ; and 
as a means of inflicting humiliation on a country allied with my na- 
tural enemies, I embarked all the energies of my nature in the cause 
of the Eagle of France. 

“ Like all other men in earnest in their profession, during the su- 
premacy of Napoleon, advancement followed. I was speedily re- 
warded by a commission. I was promised further advancement. 
But my military career was destined to a cruel and unexpected in- 
terruption. 

“ In traversing Heidelberg, in the course of my campaign, remem- 
bering it to be the birth-place and abiding place of Verelst, I took 
occasion to make such inquiries respecting the condition of my sis- 
ter as proved that her letters addressed to my father, which had fallen 
into my hands, intimating her miserable condition, conveyed no ex- 
aggerated picture of poor Rachael’s fallen fortunes. Pampered by 
prosperity, the stubbornness of cruelty was still rampant within me ; 
for the evil practised against myself had taken root in my soul, and 
was bringing forth bitter fruits. Having sworn never to behold her 
more, I made it a virtue to adhere to my oath, and though moved to 
alleviate her misfortunes, bestowed my humble gift upon her in the 
shape of alms from a stranger, rather than as an offering of brotherly 
ove. 

“ The jealous feelings of Verelst took alarm. He pursued the 
Capitaine de Clerval who had presumed to send a gift of money to 
his lovely wife. But the artist’s application for an audience having 
been answered by an insult, the indignant man waylaid my coming 
forth, and rewarded my insolence with a blow. I drew upon him, 
rushed upon him, — would fain have fought him, fain have killed 
him ! But no more than a slight wound had signalized my frenzy ; 
I was seized and placed in arrest. Imperial discipline was rigorous 
on such points ; and I, so lately the man of millions, might possibly 
have been shot like a dog, after a hasty court-martial, had not Ve- 
relst come forward with attestations of . Guess on what plea the 

fool pretended to preserve my life ! Guess !” 

Basil Annesley shrugged his shoulderr in intimation of ignorance. 

“ Insanity ! And his wife being my nearest of kin, his attesta- 
tions were received with deference ! While I stood by, in custody 
and listened, the fellow presuming to swear before my face that, for 
some years past, my conduct had been indicative of abberration of 
intellect ! It is true his absurd depositions saved my life. But at 
what a cost ! To be sent back to Paris under escort, as a lunatic ! 
To be deposited in Charenton, till the physicians decided on my 
easel In the irritation of all I had to undergo, I accused Verelst 
and my sister of malicious and interested views, — of getting me shut 
up for life with a view to obtain the administration of my remaining 
property.” 

“ Verelst is as incapable of such an act of baseness as the first no- 
ble in the land,” cried Basil, with warm indignation. 

“ I agree with you, now that I judge the case dispassionately. 
But wait, young gentleman, till you have been seized and manacled, 
till you have had your head shaved, and been starved and douched 
at the caprice of an experimentalizing apothecary, — to judge equita- 
bly of the motives of your incarcerator,” said Osalez, with a shudder. 
4 Had my poor brother-in-law entered my cell at Charenton, I am 
convinced I should have throttled him on the spot! 

41 There, however, Basil, there, as elsewhere, gold proved my sword 
and my buckler ! One of the visiting surgeons was a shrewd worldly 
man, who soon saw through the nature of my malady and position. 
Trust me, that when he proposed confederacy, I drove no hard bar- 
gain with him in assigning the sum for which he was to get me 
placed in a Maison de Sante, as partly convalescent ; and, in process 
of time, pronounce me cured and obtain my enlargement ! 

“ It was during that gloomy interval of imprisonment, Basil, that 
my nature become thoroughly desophiscated. I learnt, by hard au- 
thority, with how many of the so-styled necessaries of life human 
nature i 3 able to dispense. I soon found myself the happier for lack- 
ing menial attendance. Under such circumstances, my greatest 
luxury was to be alone. Within the four bare walls of my cell, the 
expansion of my glowing mind supplied all the splendors of the East. 
I carried my Paradise within me. My dreams were now as glow- 
ing of the gardens of Sulistan, or the white walls of Cadiz, as my 
waking impressions had been of yore ; and lo ! I said unto my soul, 
what need of costly tapestries, what need of vessels of gold or ves- 
sels of silver, what need of the toys of art, the marble of the sculp- 
tor, the canvass of the painter, since, abiding here in solitary self- 
contemplation, I am as much in the enjoyment of these things as 
when long U3e and habit rendered them inostensible and unnoticed 
under the roof of my stately Spanish palace or Parisian villa ? Com- 


pulsory starvation, compulsory vigils, compulsory self-attendance, 
soon rendered my penance habitual, and blunted the edge of the 
most cutting hardship. From that period I became master of my- 
self, and, consequently, doubly master of other people. 

“Not to weary you with details, suffice it that I was eventually 
restored to freedom. But, instead of profiting by my liberty to re- 
sume the enervate habits of life which those four years of thraldom 
had rendered irksome, I thenceforward devoted myself, solely and 
exclusively, to the worship of Mammon. Solitary reflection had con- 
vinced me that Money was the omnipotent instrument by which I 
might still work out my projects of vengeance. I resolved to punish 
my insolent brother-in-law by the tortures of poverty, while millions 
were amassing in my coffers ; and eventually bequeath them to some 
public charity or national foundation, while my kindred were beg. 
gmg their bread, and the woman who had twice cast me from her 
was exposed to all the bitterness of want ! There was ecstacy to 
me then, Basil, in these projects of vengeance ! Yes — ecstacy ! — If 
God have reserved to Himself the dealing of Vengeance, is it not 
because a pleasure worthy the Immortal ?’’ 

“You deceive yourself, Mr. Osalez !” remonstrated Basil; “or 
you would deceive me. Deal frankly with both, and you will own 
that you experienced dearer delight last night, in your reconciliation 
with those nearest to you in blood, than ever presented itself to your 
enjoyment in the course of your projects of retribution.” 

The silence of Abednego seemed to concede tacit assent to this 
proposition. But he contented himself with replying evasively, “If 
I resorted to the joys of revenge to keep alive the lazy current of 
my blood, what else had they left me ? — England had closed the 
lists of fair and honorable ambition to my approach, — and through 
them , access to the joys of domestic life. Society, had driven me 
like a dog from its gates. What wonder, then, that the hapless 
brute, thus spurned, should become rabid, and snarl, and turn upon 
his persecutors ? No matter! I am not here to advocate my own 
virtues with a view to canonization ! Enough that I soon found 
abundant and increasing joy in the procreation of wealth. To me 
it superseded all human instincts. Gold was my wife, my child, 
my kith, my kin ! — No labor was too great, no humiliation too ab- 
ject for its acquirement- The filthiest mud seemed not to defile my 
fingers, in which I discerned a single glittering particle ! Perhaps 
you will excuse these instincts as characteristic of my Jewish .cr’ 
gin ? — No, Basil ! They were net in me when I wandered with 
her among the orange-groves of Cadiz ; — they were not in me when 
howled by fools and bigots out of the House of Commons ! They 
were cravings — morbid cravings, — engendered by that gnawing fa- 
mine of the soul to which I was scornfully condemned by my fel- 
low-men ! 

“ The pursuit of wealth became a pastime rather than a toil. I 
delighted in the cunning disguises by which I attempted to penetrate 
the motives, and overmaster the destinies of my clients. Most men 
are fond of stage-playing, if they would but own it ; — some in their 
amateur theatres, — some in the pulpit, — some in the rostrum, — some 
on the wool- sack, — some on the Bench of Bishops ; — I, in Paulet 
street, St. Agnes le Clare ! — I was, at times, as proud of the drama- 
tic genius, which enabled me to go, like the wind, hither and thither 
where I listed, as a Judge after delivering a pathetic charge, or the 
Rector or Chancellor of a University when playing the bigwig for 
the bewonderment of dunces ! — I had my rat-holes in which to chaf- 
fer with my Jewish confraternity. I had my compting-houses, and 
tables of money-changers, for those having a fairer footing in the 
Temple of Mammon ; — and, lastly, I had a decent home wherein to 
treat with the capitalists of the day, so as to induce their belief in 
my non exemption from the ordinary tastes and appetites of mortal 
nature. I saw that, by standing too far aloof from the sinful lusts 
of the flesh, the pomps and vanities of life, I must pass for either 
saint or — devil ! 

“ These motley vicissitudes served to redeem human existence 
from its monotony. I was alternately king and beggar, — Richard 
in the tragedy, Abel Drugger in the farce. Gods ! how have I 
laughed in my sleeve, at the dupehood of the world ! What pup- 
pets were the great in my hands— what tools the powerful ! Ex- 
quisite, indeed, was the triumph of watching the maneeuvres of those 
who treated me as an engine, and who, the while, were mere engines 
for machinations of my own ! 

“ Such were still my sentiments and occupations, Basil Annesley, 
up to the moment of our first encounter ! But the moment a hand 
so young and stainless as yours poured oil into my wounds, a new 
life was enkindled within me. I seemed to espy noble and un- 
dreamed-of purposes of Money. I began to suspect that it might 
be converted into a means of human happiness as well as of transi- 
tory pleasure. Your interest in behalf of VeVelst brought the exile 
of my sister to my knowledge. Mercy was dawning within me. — 
Peace brooded in my heart over her dove-like couplets. 

“ I visited the family in disguise. I learnt to love their virtues, to 
admire their graces. I have less compunction, Basil, for having 
abandoned those lovely girls to the rough schooling of adversity; 
for it has left them good, true, generous, tender, — all that the gilding 
of luxury disguises in the courtly bred, if it do not destroy. For 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA. — ABEDNEGO. 


4? 


worlds, I would not have their honest natures resemble the frippery 
do-nothingness of your friends, the Maitlands! Nor would I have 
them heartless and proud— like — like her, — for all the happiness I 
trust my old age may yet derive from their gentle companionship ! 

“ And now, Basil Annesley, (lest I see you again place your hand 
on your waistcoat pocket in search of the trumpery toy by which 
your useless moments are admeasured,) I release you 1 I ask no 
opinion, no sentence, on what I have related ! I see, by your altered 
countenance towards me, that a revolution hath been effected in your 
mind. Be not over-hasty. Ponder over these things in your heart, 
and maturely weigh them ere we meet again.” 

Relieved by this intimation, the young soldier rose calmly and 
coldly from his seat, and glanced towards the panel by which he had 
accomplished his entrance. 

“ No need to sneak out there /” cried the old man, assuming a 
more cheerful tone. “ I shall be proud to introduce you into ano- 
ther of my households.” Then, throwing open the door of a dining- 
room, hung with masterpieces of the old masters, he conducted him 
through a handsome library, into a snug dressing-room, where his 
well-brushed coat and hat, his handkerchief and gloves, formally 
set out, were awaiting him, beside a commodious toilet-table, pre- 
paratory to quitting the house. Involuntarily young Annesley shrug- 
ged his shoulders. 

“ You are thinking of Delahaye street, eh ?” observed Osalez, with 
a smile. “ To me both places are of the same account. My heart 
and soul are not empty enough to find room for petty wants or re- 
pinings. — 

When the mind’s free, the body’s delicate. 

Should you ever acquire objects in life of the engrossing nature of 
those that absorb the attention of a great capitalist, you will cease 
to take thought of the softness of your couch, or the flavor of your 
dishes. Yet why not do myself fuller justice in your eyes, by avow- 
ing that half the privations to which you have seen me expose my- 
self, were acts of voluntary penance ? Alas ! Basil, if not a Jew, I 
merit, I own, the charge made by St. Paul, of being ‘in all things 
too superstitious.’ ‘ I incline much to sacrifices of atonement. That 
you sought me, Basil, and befriended me amid the wretchedness 
which appeared so real, seems intended by the Almighty a3 repayment 
for all rpy oelf-iiiflicted tortures.’’ 

wr While buttoning on his coat, Osalez intimated to his visiter a 
desire to transport him in him his carriage to the West end of the 
town. 

“ Still harping on your horse ?” cried he, when his young visiter 
again excused himself. “ Fear nothing ! By my orders, Zebedee 
conveyed the beast back to your stables half an hour ago.” 

“ Why, you do not even know my stables !” cried Basil, almost 
with indignation. “Pardon me! — I know all and everything that 
concerns you. And now, will you come back and dine with me 
quietly in Bernard street ?” 

Already Basil had excused himself, while Osalez was about to step 
into a chariot awaiting him at the door of the handsome mansion 
from the spacious hall of which they were emerging together, when 
an intimation, that the Verelsts were already installed the inmates of 
their wealthy kinsman, induced him to pause. His scarcely audible 
mutterings about a change of dress were instantly scouted by Abed- 
nego ! 

“ How long have you been such a coxcomb ?’’ cried he. “ The 
last time you dined with me, you had not changed your dress ! Why 
so much respect for the Verelsts ? — Have you not been the child of 
their house — the friend of their firesides? At all events, come with 
me, and I will drop you when we reach Temple- Bar.” 

u You have persuaded Verelst, then, to give up his engagements 
to the Marquis ?” inquired Basil, as they drove at a rapid pace through 
the city. 

“ On the contrary, I never even attempted it ! I appreciated too 
highly an artist’s independence of mind! Let him distinguish him- 
self — immortalize himself, if he can ! So much the better and 
happier for them all. The girls and their mother will reside with 
me during his absence in the North.” 

On arriving in Bernard street (for, once installed in the carriage, 
Basil found it impossible to resist the old man’s solicitations) young 
Annesley was as cheerfully welcomed by Mrs. Verelst and her 
daughters as ever he had been to their humble fireside, either at 
Heidelberg or in London. 

“ You have already officiated as my valet, let me now act as 
yours,” cried Osalez, addressing Basil, and motioning to his pom- 
pous butler to lead the way to his dressing-room. “ Dine with us, 
Basil, you must and shall. I have some Neckar wine that Verelst 
swears is superior to Hockheimn — (Lord Maitland, no doubt, has 
made you a judge of Hock !)— - that will open your hearl and his, 
and carry you both back to your cordial German days of old !” 

It was when their hearts were open and back in the past, that Ba- 
sil began to be entirely of the opinion of Verelst, that the Neckar 
wine of Osalez was equal to Hock. But for the single apprehension 
of Esther’s approaching departure to the North with the family — an 
apprehension he dared not confront, yet could not dismiss from his 
mind, — he would have felt that he was enjoying the happiest day of 


his life ! Welcome! on all sides as a friend, — benefactor, — idol, — 
Osalez seemed to fix his eyes upon him as though he were worth 
a million a carat ; while the Verelsts could scarcely refrain from fold- 
ing him to their hearts, as the origin of all their prosperity and peace. 

It stung him to the soul when the reflection glanced into his mind 
how much more these people loved and prized him than his mother ! 
How seldom in the course of his life had Lady Annesley testified 
towards him a thousandth part of the sympathy he was now ex- 
citing ! For what other human being, however, did she display 
more ? Was she tender even of herself? — Did she not rather, like 
Osalez, render her existence a species of voluntary penance ? 

For the first time Basil Annesley reflected on all this with a degree 
of pity amounting almost to awe. lie dreaded to reflect on what 6he 
might have undergone to imbue a soul so lofty with such repellent 
austerity of sternness; He -knew that., after his father’s death in 
the Peninsula, his sister had been pe'remptorily withdrawn by the 
Annesley family frGm her protection : and connecting this circum- 
stance with the narrative of Osalez, the ravings of old Nicholas, 
and the discovery of a volume in her possession bearing the hateful 
initials of A. O., — trembled to consider what might have been the 
direful vicissitudes of her troubled life. It was almost impossible to 
him to remain seated at the board: of Abednego ! 

By degrees every vestige of "Color forsook his cheek ; and his emo- 
tion was so manifest, that not ono of 'the party attempted to detain 
him when he rose from tabletmd pleaded indisposition as a pretext 
for quiting the house. 

Cl Fain would I have enjoyed one h apply.; evening in their society , ** 
mused Basil, as he hurried homewards. “But the indulgence had 
only been too dangerously dear ! — No ! We will meet no more till I 
have had a full explanation with my dear mother. If unsatisfactory, 

I will never see them again !” 

Next night he was at Barlingham. It was through the twilight of 
a glorious evening in May, that he now traversed the fields ; a glori- 
ous evening fragrant with the breath of thyme and hawthorns, — the 
springy thymy herbage buoyant beneath his feet,— and the wood- 
lands quivering with that tenderer foliage of early sp^fig, whose beau- 
ty is as of an hour’s duration. 

On reaching the small platform in which the surly old mansion 
stood isolated, his heart sunk within him. The dread of his mother’s 
mournful voice and aspect overpowered his spirits. The embarrass- 
ment, — the chill invariably benumbing his feelings in the only spot 
on earth where he was entitled to feel at ease, exercised their usual 
distressing spell over his heart. 

On entering the sitting-room he found Lady Annesley seated in her 
high- backed ebony chair, at her writing-table beside the open case- 
ment ; enjoying, in solitary meditation, the balmy sweetness of that 
delicious night. The dews were rising, — the birds at rest. All was 
stillness, and holiness, and peace. But though she must have seen 
him traverse the little bridge across the moat in order to reach the old 
portal, she had not stirred a step to greet her only son! Nevertheless 
Basil flattered himself that he discerned in her countenance tokens 
of more than ordinary sociability and^good will. 

“You are welcome, my dear son !” was as much from the lips of 
that austere recluse, as the most impassioned caress from a more de- 
monstrative parent. 

It was |lways difficult to enter into conversation with one who 
took so little interest in worldly events, the frivolities with which or- 
dinary women are amusable. Anecdotes of the day, — accounts of a 
new opera or forthcoming ballet, — a brilliant debate or the last new 
novel, — provoked from her a listless monosyllable, nay sometimes the 
most reproving severity of countenance. On the present occasion \ 
to his utter surprise, she was the first to question him concerning the 
dissipations of London. 

“With whom have you been living lately?” said she, in a more 
than usually cheerful voice. “ The breaking up of the establishment 
at Rochester House must have been a loss to you, — frequenting it as 
you did ! The Maitlands too, I find, are about to quit London. 
You used to speak of their society as a resource. How will you be 
able to part with the pretty-fair-haired Lucy, who is said to regard 
you with such partiality ?” 

“The Maitlands are the sort of girls lo regard with partiality any 
disengaged young man disposed to trifle away his time at their 
house,” replied Basil, becoming grave in his turn, as he reflected 
with what horror lady Annesley was likely to listen to an avowal of 
the motive of his ingratitude for Lucy’s predilection ! 

“ Knowing which, you should have been on your guard against 
any entanglement of the poor girl’s affections,” retorted his mother. 
“ In such matters, a woman’s peace of mind is the last thing consi- 
dered ; — though, Heaven knows, no holier trust is confided to man by 
the hands of hi3 Maker, than the happiness and wellbeing of the wo- 
man with whom through life he is connected!” 

“ I heartily agree with you!” — cried her son; “and should hate 
myself were I capable of dealing lightly or cruelly with any woman 
to whom I believed myself an object of genuine attachment. Lucy 
Maitland, on the contrary, has trifled with me,- — since, while indulg- 
ing in what London calls flirtation, she was prepared to accept the 
first elder son, with good prospects, who came in her way.” 


48 


BROTHER JONATHAN EXTRA. — ABE DN EGO. 


“In short, you are devoid of grace and sympathy ! And yet,” re- 
sumed Lady Annesley, “ I was desired to sound your affections by 
those who are anxious, humble as your fortunes are, to encumber 
them with a wife, and who seem to have apprehended, in Miss Mait- 
land, an obstacle to their projects!” . A . . 

“ Projects of a marriage with me?” cried Basil, in great surprise and 
some indignation. “ I am exceedingly obliged to their officiousness! 
Rut I have neither the means nor the inclination to marry ! How 
absurd, — how f impertinent!” 

“ Your affections are engaged then, though not to Miss Maitland, 
or you would not be thus resentful !” observed Lady Annesley. — 
u ^is i 9 precisely the point which Vardyn, my solicitor, has written 
to me to ascertain. He charged me, 1 must admit, not to betray hi3 
mission to yourself. But I am getting weary of mysteries! As we 
approach the grave, Basil, the claims of those we love to our entire 
confidence, acquire stronger force. A few short years, and all that 
can bo known of all of us, will be known to ail ! To what purpose 
then the petty disguises and hypocrisies with which, through life, we 
conceal them from each other ?” 

Basil Annesley was more amazed to hear such a sentence issue 
from his mother’s lips, than by all her previous amenity. 

“Vardyn assures me,” continued her ladyship, “that the lady 
whose family is eager to make you an offer of her hand, is young, 
lovely, accomplished, amiable, virtuous, a great heiress, warmly at- 
tached to you — ” A 

“Warmly attached to me?” interrupted young Annes:ey; — “are 
you certain he said that she was warmly attached to ms?” 

J “Quite certain! — But your interest in the fair unknown, whom 
just fiOw*you treated so cavalierly, seems to be suddenly increasing?” 

“lam sure I know not why I’’-— replied Basil, with a heavy sigh, 
(for already the flattering whispers of his heart assured him that the 
desire of Osalez to unite him with one of his lovely nieces must be 
the origin of these singular overtures,) “ for were the person referred 
to a thousand times more attractive and more richly endowed, the 
match were impossible !’ 5 

“ You know the parties then V 9 

“ I fear so! and am unhappily certain, dearest mo her, that a less 
welcome daughter-in-law could not have been presented to your ac- 
esptmee.” 

U Nevertheless,” persisted Lady Annesley, “ Vardyn, who is a man 
of thehighest respectability— a man of sense, probity, feeling, though 
a man of the world, assures me that a more auspicious connection 
could not have presented itself. The uncle of the yousag lady is pre- 
pared to bring you into parliament and settle upon you an estate of 
fifteen thousand a-year!” 

*< Were it fifteen thousand times as much, my dear mother, suffice 
it that you would in the end refuse your consent !” 

“ You excite my curiosity beyond measure !” cried Lady Annes- 
ley. “ You must, indeed give me credit for unworldliness, to suppose 
me unbiassed by such powerful considerations !” 

“ I believe you to be bussed by considerations still more powerful, 5 * 
replied Basil, in a subdued voice — dreading lest she should push her 

inquiries to a fuler explanation. 

“ Alas ! at the end of my career, I am come to the conclusion that 
no worldly interest is comparable with opulence for those we love !” 
replied the ikttfuse; “money, my dear Basil, is the source of all hu- 
man influences !” . 

“ Nevertheless there are prejudices — there are resentments, which 
it is insufficient to overcome !” observed her son, almost trembling, 
as he saw the secret on the point of being extorted from his lips. 

“Tnere can be none, I should imagine, to bear upon the case in 
point,” resumed the lady. “ Vardyn expressly mentions that the 
young heiress in question is the daughter of exemplary people of un- 
blemished character. As regards mere ancestral distinctions, I have 
ceased to put my trust in coronets !” 

“But if she were of Jewish origin?” faltered Basil, almost encou- 
raged by her moderation. 

“ Even then, if by faith and profession a Christian, I should not 
presume to raise objections, 5 * replied Lady Annesley, in a voice whose 
mildness was as balm to the ears of her son ! “ Listen to me, Basil ! 

Even such a prejudice as you have supposed on this occasion, was the 
means of disuniting your mother from the object of her earliest af- 
fections — the noblest and best of human kind. A long life of afflic- 
tion has not sufficed to expiate the weakness with which I suffered 
myself to be forced by my family into renouncing him, and bestow- 
ing my hand upon another — an honorable man — whom l did not love. 
But that he whose generous heart I perverted by my evil dealing dis- 
graced himself in his turn, by retaliations which proved the means 
of steeping my days in anguish and remorse, and inflicting on others 
an injury still greater than I had inflicted on himself — l should go to 
the grave with the weight upon my soul of a deep and inexpiable 
offence!— -His vengeance seeui3 to have wrought atonement for me. 
But pardon me, Basil!’ 5 she continued, shuddering from head to foot 
with strong emotion — “ it is not to you I must speak of this!” 


“ it is — it is /” cried the young man, casting himself at her feet 
aad taking her trembling hands fondly in his own. — “To whom but 
your son— your loving and submissive Eon— can you unfold your 
griefs? — Who can sympathize in them like myself? — Talk to me of 
that early love, mother — talk to me cf Cadiz— of him to whom you 
pledged your heart” — — 

“ You know all, then?” interrupted Lady Annesley, turning death- 
ly pale, yet without attempting to withdraw from his endearments. 

“ I foresaw that the day would come when some officious voice would 
interpose between us with the tale !” 

“ That voice, mother, was his own !” 

Lady Annesley gently waved her head. “The man I speak of 

fell, like your fa like his happier victim — -in battle ! Enrolled in 

the Imperial army, at the battle tf Austerlitz he was slain. This, 
th s is all the trace that remains of him on earth !” pursued the lady, 
in a scarcely audible tone, taking from the desk beside her the por- 
trait opened by her son on a former occasion, — “ How dear, — still and 
ever how dear, -it becomes me not to say ! Look upon that face, 

Basil — examine that noble — that intellectual countenance, and tell 
me whether it pleads nothing for the weakness of your mother.” 

As a pretext for averting his eyes from her own, young Annesley 
gazed fi r some moments in silence, on the picture- — tracing unmis- 
takeably in every lineament the altered features of CLal«z. 

“ After the warm and unaltered interest you have avowed, mother, 
in the original of this portrait, 5 ’ said he, at length, in as firm a voice 
as his beaiing heart would allow, “ I have scarcely courage to reite- | 
rate ray assertion that he lives; that but yesterday, my hand was 
grasped in his ; that he has been my friend — my benefactor. Next 
to yourself, Osak-z is the person who has exercised the strongest in- 
fluence over the mind and conduct of your son.” 

Lady Annesley clasped her hands together in unspeakable emotion. | 
“Do not deceive me, Basil!” cried she. “Speak — speak. Let 
me hear those words again ! He lives ? —He loves you V* 

“He lives — is rich, prosperous, powerful ! It is the daughter of 
his only sister he has offered you t© become my wife i’ 5 

So overpowering was the revolution created in Lady Annesley’s 
mind by the startling intelligence thu 3 communicated, that for a time 
the prospects of the two families were cruelly overclouded by the dan. 
ger of one who had loved much, and suffered in^pfdp».“ori to th * > 
strength of her ..flections. The sorrows of along series of yeard^'f^ 
the vain and fruitless sorrows seemed to have exercised less influence 
over her stern and powerlul nature than this unlooked-for dawn of 
brighter days. The tender nursing of her son — the assiduities of 
those who hastened down from Barlingham at his summons to re- 
ceive what she believed tobe a last fare well, at length restored her to 
herself. But it was not possible to disavow in health the fond avow- 
als of that parting heur. 

Not that Lady Annesley evinced an ungenerous desire to recall 
the concessions she had accorded. The marriage of Basil with his 
beloved Esther was sanctioned by her presence and benediction ; and 
immediately after the ceremony, the young couple took possession of 
a beautiful estate in Berkshire, settled on them by the munificence of 
Mrs. Annesley’s generous kinsman. It was the earnest desire of 
both that the man to whom they were indebted for their happiness 
should become their honored inmate. But immediately after witnes- 
sing the solemnization of their marriage, Abednego Osalez abrubtly 
quitted England, without fixing any definite period for hisre'urn. 

Basil Annesley, satisfied that his unexpected departure was the re- 
sult of a long and painful interview with the object of his early affec- 
tion, in which, with all the firmness and dignity peculiar to her cha 
racter, Lady Annesley intimated the impossibility of a nearer .con 
nection between those whom the decrees of Providence appeared ex- 
pressly to have kept asunder, entertains little expectation of his 
friend’s return to England. Esther, on the contrary, attributes his 
absence to the desire of extricating her father from the political feuds 
in which the rashness of poor Verelst had involved him in his native 
province, previous to negotiating a marriage, between Salome and her 
plighted lover the young Count von Ehrenstein, at present debarred 
by the opposition of his family from claiming her hand. 

’ Lady Annesley, who, though a frequent visiter to her son, per- J 
sists in retaininglier gloomy residence at Barlingham, listens without 
comment to the surmises of the family. With the discernment gene- « 
rated by a more intimate insight into his character, she is probably 
aware that the absence of Osalez will be prolonged only till he has 
been enabled to break off all ties that connect him with his past call* 1 
ing and interests. Active and trustworthy agents arc, m tact, alrea- ! 
dy charged with powers to concentrate and realize his singularly 
scattered property, with a view to the reinvestment of the enormous 
capital in a landed estate; and should t ms and reflection avail to 
soften the obduracy of one, through life the ruling influence of his 
conduct, a change of name, connected with this proprietorship, may 
possibly still further tend to obliterate, in the accomplished country 
gentleman, ail trace of the Money-lender A. O. 


END OF ABEDNEGO THE MONEY-LENDER. 


LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 


0 009 618 188 7 % 


